Everyone has a story. And not just any story, but a story that is totally, completely and utterly unique. Every single being has, like a thumbprint or a snowflake, a signature story like none other. Take a moment and remember a time you heard someone tell you about their life, something that touched, moved and inspired you. You found yourself not just listening with the utmost intentionality but found yourself viscerally feeling their story too like you were there in the experience with them as it happened. Why is that? How was that possible?

As a speaker and workshop leader, I have seen emotions come up in my audience. I have found that when I am vulnerable and share from a deep and truthful place there is an energetic connection that cannot be described. Something happens. It’s like the molecules in the space move and rearrange themselves to generate the same openness and vulnerability in the audience. No amount of practiced or memorized speech giving can create this...

Operating System defined on Webopedia: “The operating system (OS) is the most important program that runs on a computer. Every general-purpose computer must have an operating system to run other programs and applications. Computer operating systems perform basic tasks, such as recognizing input from the keyboard, sending output to the display screen, keeping track of files and directories on the storage drives, and controlling peripheral devices, such as printers.”

All technology runs on some type of OS. A set of rules, processes, and methodologies, essentially a “program” that gives it the path to arrive at a specific result at the end. I bet you would find 5 things right away that run on a set of either simple operating rules or system, from the simplest to the most complex forms.

Take your own computer or just your smartphone for that matter. On occasion we get a pop-up informing us of an available upgrade. We are advised to install these updates so that...

On Mother's Day a few years ago, my girls asked me what I wanted to do. I told them I wanted to give them massages. Some may see this as strange or weird perhaps...maybe thinking the girls should have been giving me a massage...but for me, spending that precious time with my girls, one at a time, loving and nurturing them was how I received. The greatest gift they could have given me was the time spent together. That is what truly brought joy to my heart.

When we break down the word "forgiving" we literally see the words FOR GIVING. How cool is that? Forgiving is truly FOR GIVING. I am no exception to this. Like many others, I have been through some significant struggles in my life, but I honestly have to say that being able to FORGIVE has helped me receive more grace than I could have ever imagined possible. Forgiving is a choice, and it's one that doesn't come easily for most.

Another choice when something doesn't go our way is to complain and whine about why we're not getting...

One moment IT was there, the next moment, IT was gone. I was overcome with a clarity like never before. My eyes had never seen like they could see before, my ears had never listened like this, words seemed more deliberate than ever. This magical, mystical, miracle moment of my life was the moment I lost IT.

What is IT, you ask? IT is the Inner Talk, the Inner Trash or the Inner Turmoil that used to go on and on and on inside my head. For decades entertaining me, with it’s non-stop running movie reel with back to back screenings, incessantly, playing and replaying, sometimes in slow motion, in high definition, zooming in on mostly those events I wanted to forget. An inner turmoil – twisted and tricky, that would just never stop, a voice that would never shut up, it would go on and on and bring me down, it would remind me of my failings, what was not working for me, who was next on the disappointing me list, what they did, how they hurt me, how I was betrayed,...

I have often heard people talk about this “3D World” we live in, where the 3 D’s stand for death, disaster, and destruction. That these are some of the inescapable truths of being alive if you will. I have also heard other “D words” interchanged with some of these, such as disease, devastation, deception or doom.

Wow, there are a lot of heavy D words, aren’t there?

If you have been reading my blogs for a while, it may come as no surprise to you, but this “3D” description of life as I know it, did not sit well with me, so instead I came up with my own version of a 3D world; one that I can rejoice in and am wholeheartedly willing to commit to and embrace. Want to know what that is?

Deliberate Divine Discovery

What if we looked at our “3D” world as an invitation for Deliberate Divine Discovery instead? What would that make available? When faced with challenges in life, past conditioning and belief systems may guide one down a...

At the launch of my book, “Coming Home to the Heart - Transforming Trauma into Infinite Possibilities for Healing” I had a major breakthrough. Not only was the process of writing the book cathartic, but I realized that once written, it was the first time in my adult life that I didn’t have a shame-based secret to hide. I had never, as an adult, inhabited my own body, secret-free. Do you know what I mean?

Since I was a little girl, I was made to believe that the secrets of my life would have to live and die with me. That was as final as it could have been. I was fortunate enough that this trajectory changed in my life and today I know what it is to not carry the past in my heart, body, and mind. Just weeks before my book launch, I was so afraid, so terrified of the book coming out, that I wrote the following words:

Let Go

I don’t want to be here

In front of you like this

I don’t want to tell you my story

I don’t want to speak about what happened

...

Buddhism identifies Ten Worlds -- ten states or conditions of life that we experience within our lives, moving from one to another at any moment according to our interactions with our environment and those around us. Each of us possesses the potential to experience all ten, from the prison-like despair and self-hatred of Hell to the expansive joy and wisdom of Buddhahood.

The Ten Worlds are Hell, Hunger, Animality, Anger, Humanity, Heaven, Learning, Realization, Bodhisattva, and Buddhahood. By strengthening our spiritual lives, rather than being at the mercy of our surroundings we can develop the ability to set our own direction and spend more of our lives in the more positive life states.

Each of us has a tendency to gravitate toward a particular life state, and if this is one of the lower worlds, great suffering can be caused to ourselves and those around us. Through raising up our life condition which manifests in the Ten Worlds, we can bring out the positive aspects of any...

Last year this time I was running a program called Raising Conscious Parents. After an incredible experience speaking on a live online parenting summit, I found that the Pause for Power material was really helping parents be the best version of themselves. I realized that not only do I have some personal experience (by trial and error mostly) as a parent myself, I have also been struggling for decades at reparenting myself – which of course, is this whole other ball of wax.

On the surface, my life growing up looked amazing. What with the big house, pretty clothes, private schools, chefs, maids, and chauffeurs. Then, to top it all, a career in the movie business as a film star in none other than Bollywood. Many would have given anything to have all these “things” I had. Unfortunately, that was not the reality of my life. In reality, I was living in an emotionally and sexually abusive household and with dysfunctional parents. From the age of 9 my sense of safety...

I was four years old when I took my first dance class. It was an Indian classical dance form called Bharatnatyam. I took to it right away, absolutely loving every minute of it. A few years later I enrolled in Classical Russian ballet. Such different styles, but both forms brought me so much joy.

A few days ago cleaning my closet I came across a silk bag. Bells jingled as I picked up the bag. My mother’s dancing bells. Mommy was a classical dancer. She performed all over the world. She was also an accomplished actress, singer, writer, director, and still is to this day.

She had given me her bells and I would wear them and dance in the house. She taught me some basics and I would improvise from there. I had such fun dancing. I would love getting lost in dance. But something happened this week that shook me to the core.

My heart leaped with joy with the sweet remembrance of the days I used to wear bells around my ankles and dance. Wanting to recreate this memory and share it with...

18 years ago when I lived in Paris, I wrote the following poem called, “The Nightingale”.

The bubble burst and splashed itself all around and over me.

The bird was flying across the blue sky and a hunter shot it down.

The rose was blooming petal by petal and I plucked it and threw it into the fire.

I had a sip of water in a beautiful lake in a beautiful forest and stepped into a trap.

A bowl of milk was lying for me and a drop of black ink fell into it by chance.

The Gods were showering their blessing on me and I was looking for shelter.

The spirit in me was rising splendidly and I stepped on it with the weight of an elephant.

I was singing like a nightingale and someone pushed me off the branch in my sleep.

You could say there was distress in my life then, even trauma. It was a dark and dreadfully dreary time. My heart was heavy and the future looked bleak. Hope, love, joy, and peace were not easily accessible, to say the least.

At the time...