Written by Marya Firdausi Kazmi, Transformational Leadership & Identity Coach Marya Kazmi is a Transformational Leadership Coach and educator who helps individuals and organizations to examine identity, unlearn limiting patterns, and build values-aligned leadership using reflective frameworks and community-centered practices. I once sat across from a school leader who told me, without hesitation, that being a good leader meant being nice. Keeping the peace. Making sure no one felt uncomfortable. I remember my reaction in that moment: a quiet alarm. Because what I was hearing wasn't leadership. It was avoidance dressed up as kindness. “Love is an action, never simply a feeling.” – bell hooks That conversation stayed with me. It made me ask a harder question: what does it actually mean to lead with love in spaces where accountability and justice are at stake? Why this matters for leaders In my work consulting and coaching leaders, especially in education, I've watched the duties of the job consistently override the deeper work of leading with love. Leaders default to comfort. They avoid the real concerns, the unhealthy patterns, and the practices quietly causing harm. They mistake niceness for leadership. Neither approach works. Avoidance and false harmony both lead to the same place: mistrust, compliance instead of investment, and a culture that fractures from the inside while looking fine on the surface. Love, when it's real, is not soft. It's not the absence of conflict. It's a stance, and it requires a leader willing to do something much harder than keeping the peace. Love is a stance, not a strategy Love does not mean avoiding conflict. Love begins with cultivating spaces that honor the full humanity of the people inside them, through relationships that are actually authentic. Leaders who handle conflict well understand something simple but rare: people need to feel safe enough to engage in creative friction, in real dialogue aimed at understanding, not debates aimed at winning. That safety doesn't come from happy hours or softball games. Team building isn't community building. Community building requires real conversations, the kind that surface the life experiences that shape who we are. That opens up two things most workplaces leave at the door: identity and personal experience. Both are constantly present, whether we name them or not. Who we are determines what makes us feel threatened or replenished as employees, leaders, and colleagues. Race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, ability, and all the intersecting parts of our humanity shape how we move through work and how we're perceived by the people around us. When we don't create space to talk about these things, both as life experience and as something that shows up in how we work together, we lower the odds of risk taking, real conflict resolution, and genuine collaboration. We also lose our ability to disrupt harm with care when it happens, because we never built the foundation that makes that possible. bell hooks and the practice of love hooks' words anchor this: love is an action, never simply a feeling. For leaders, that means listening deeply when someone tells you the system is hurting them. It means interrupting practices that protect comfort or default norms simply because "it's the way we've always done it." It means making space for joy, for resistance, and for healing inside the organizations you lead. This kind of love isn't about being agreeable. It's about being committed. When I tell the leaders I coach that I love them, I don't mean I coddle them. I mean, I believe in their capacity to grow into who the people around them need them to be. The danger of niceness Niceness and kindness are not the same thing. Kindness is honest. It's just. It's brave enough to say the hard thing. Niceness, on the other hand, is often a tool people use to avoid difficult conversations about identity, to sidestep accountability, or to protect their own comfort at someone else's expense. In my leadership development work, I've watched the moment a leader stops being nice and starts being real. It's uncomfortable. It's also the moment real trust starts to build. Leading with love means holding people to their potential Real love for the people you serve, whether that's students, employees, or a team, shows up in how you push the adults around them to be better. I coach leaders to see past the deficits they notice first in their staff or their students. To ask the harder questions instead of the comfortable ones. To reflect honestly on their own identity and the power they hold. Loving leadership is generative. It says, you're not there yet, but I'm going to walk with you until you are. Closing reflection What would it look like if love, the real kind, was the foundation of every leadership decision you made? Not love as ease. Not love as avoidance. Love as accountability, as affirmation, as action. That redefinition is the work. And it starts with the decision to stop being nice and start being honest. If this resonates, I'd love to continue the conversation. Reach out to explore coaching, speaking, or consulting for your team or organization, and let's talk about what it would take to build a culture rooted in this kind of love. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Marya Firdausi Kazmi Marya Firdausi Kazmi, Transformational Leadership & Identity Coach Marya Kazmi is a Transformational Leadership & Identity Coach and educator who helps individuals and organizations examine identity and cultivate values- aligned leadership. Her work is shaped by lived experience and years of professional practice, informing the reflective tools she created to support healing, clarity, and growth. She is the creator of the RETURN framework, which guides people through a process of unlearning, reconnection, and coming home to themselves. Marya is also the executive producer and host of Pain to Power, a talk show exploring leadership, healing, and human-centered change. Her work bridges lived insight with practical strategies, inviting others into a healing evolution rooted in self-trust, belonging, and purpose.

Anastasia Schenk is a Pediatric Feeding Specialist and Integrative Nutrition Health Coach who reversed her own autoimmune condition through nutrition and now helps families build a healthier relationship with food from the very first spoonful. As founder of Early Eaters Club, she works where clinical feeding science meets lived experience, with a focus on picky eating, gut health, and the early years that quietly shape a lifetime of eating. In this interview, Anastasia explains why feeding shapes far more than nutrition, what the convenience-food era is quietly costing young children, and how parents can take the pressure off the table without giving up on real food. Anastasia Schenk, Pediatric Feeding Specialist/Integrative Nutrition What first made you realize that childhood feeding habits shape far more than nutrition alone? It crept up on me. I trained thinking the job was nutrients. Iron, fats, the right amount of protein at the right age. Tidy, measurable, the kind of thing you can put in a chart. Then I started watching what actually happened at the table, and the chart fell apart. A toddler refusing everything green was not being difficult for sport. He was telling me something about texture, about control, about a meal weeks earlier that had gone badly and got quietly filed under danger. Food was never just food to him. It was memory, safety, autonomy, the first place he got to say no and have it mean something. That reframed the whole job for me. What a child learns at the table, they carry well past it, whether to trust their own hunger, how to sit with discomfort, whether the adults feeding them are on their side. We think we are building eaters. We are building a relationship with the body that outlasts childhood by decades, and nobody hands you a manual for that part. How did reversing your own autoimmune condition change the way you approach pediatric feeding today? It changed everything because it dragged the theory out of my textbooks and onto my own plate. For years, I was told my condition was something to manage, not something to question. Take the medication, expect a slow decline, that is simply how these things go. Nobody asked what I was eating. Nobody connected the inflammation in my lab results to the food I was putting in three times a day. When I finally started treating food as information rather than fuel, my body answered. Not overnight, and not by magic. But it answered. That rewired how I see children. When one arrives with eczema, permanent congestion, a stomach that always hurts, and reflux that everyone shrugs at, I no longer see a tidy list of separate problems to medicate. I see a system trying to get a message through. We are remarkably good at silencing those messages in children and calling it treatment. I treat feeding as the earliest and most repeated lesson a body ever gets. I learned that the hard way, on myself, which is not the route I would recommend. Why do you think picky eating is still misunderstood in many families and even within healthcare? Because we have been handed a story that is convenient for everyone except the child. The story says picky eating is a phase, or bad behaviour, or proof that a parent is too soft. All three are comforting, because they put the blame somewhere tidy and let us avoid looking harder. The truth is messier. Some children are genuinely wired to taste bitterness more sharply. Others are quietly recovering from a feeding experience that scared them. A few have a gut or sensory issue that nobody has thought to check. Healthcare is not built to catch any of this. A standard appointment runs ten minutes, and feeding usually gets a weight check and a cheerful “he’ll grow out of it.” Most clinicians were never trained to tell the difference between a fussy eater and a child whose nervous system has decided the dinner table is enemy territory. So families are left improvising, normally with bribery and crossed fingers, which makes the whole thing worse. The child is rarely the problem. The map we were all given is. What concerns you most about the rise of convenience foods and pouch-based feeding for young children? It is not the occasional pouch in a handbag that worries me. We have all been there, parked outside somewhere, buying ninety seconds of peace. It is what daily reliance quietly takes away. A pouch asks nothing of a child. No biting, no chewing, no wrestling with a piece of food that refuses to slide straight down. We are raising the least practised jaws in human history, and the body builds what you ask it to build. Less chewing reshapes the jaw, the airway, and even how a child sleeps. None of that prints on the label. Then there is taste. Pouches are sweet, smooth, and almost identical from one brand to the next. A child raised on them learns that food should be sweet and effortless, and then we act betrayed when broccoli flops at age three. Convenience is not the villain. I have two children and a deep respect for exhaustion. My worry is that we have let convenience become the default instead of the exception, and a small body gets exactly one run at learning how to eat. What is one mistake parents often make when introducing solids that can create long-term feeding challenges? Starting with bland, single-note cereals and then keeping everything smooth for months longer than needed. There is a stubborn habit of opening with baby rice or oat cereal because it feels gentle. The catch is that a baby’s digestive system in those early months is primed for fat and protein, not for a heavy load of starch. The enzyme that breaks those cereals down has barely clocked in. So we lead with the one thing the gut is least ready for, wrapped in a flavour that quietly teaches a child food is beige. The second half of the mistake is staying on purees out of nerves. Texture is a skill, and skills have windows. A baby who never meets lumps and soft finger foods at the right age tends to refuse them later, once the window has narrowed and everyone is more anxious about it. My rule is unglamorous. Real food, real flavour, real texture, earlier than most parents are told. Babies are far more capable than the cereal aisle gives them credit for. How can parents reduce mealtime anxiety without turning food into a daily battle? Step out of the role of enforcer. The second a meal becomes something you win or lose, you have already lost, because a child can out-stubborn you on this every time. It is the one lever they fully control, and they know it. The shift that rescues most families is splitting the job. You decide what is served, when, and where. Your child decides whether to eat it and how much. It sounds almost too small to matter. In practice, it lifts an enormous weight off the table, because you stop negotiating and they stop performing outrage for an audience. Then turn the temperature down. Eat together when you can. Put the new food on the table with no speech attached and no pressure to touch it. A child often needs to see something ten or fifteen times before going near it, and every calm exposure counts, including the ones that look like nothing happened. You have not failed because dinner was quiet and barely touched. You are playing a long game, and calm is how you win it. What role does gut health play in a child’s behavior, immunity, and relationship with food? A far bigger one than most people are ready to hear. A huge share of the immune system actually lives in the gut, and in early childhood, the whole thing is still under construction. The mix of bacteria a child builds in those first years helps set how their immune system reacts, how they handle food, and even how steady their moods run. This is the part that surprises parents. The gut and the brain are in constant conversation, and not always a polite one. A child carrying low-grade gut inflammation can be irritable, foggy, a poor sleeper, quick to melt down, and none of it looks like a tummy issue from the outside. It looks like behaviour. Diversity is what builds a sturdy gut, and diversity comes from variety on the plate, real fibre, and fewer additives elbowing the good bacteria aside. The narrow beige diet we hand so many children does the precise opposite. I tell parents to stop picturing the gut as plumbing. It is closer to a second brain, and we are feeding it whether we mean to or not. Why is emotional safety at the table just as important as nutritional quality? Because a stressed body does not digest, learn, or trust well, children eat with their entire nervous system, not just their mouth. Think of the tensest meal of your own childhood. The order to finish, the plate was going cold while somebody made a point of it. Most of us can feel it in our shoulders instantly. That stress response shuts digestion down and files the whole event under threat, and do it often enough, and a child starts bracing before they have even pulled out the chair. You can plate up the most flawless, nutrient-dense dinner ever assembled, and if it lands with anxiety attached, the child’s system is too busy defending itself to absorb much of it. Nutrition and emotion are not separate tracks. They travel together, always. This is the line I most wish parents heard. A relaxed meal of imperfect food beats a tense meal of perfect food every single time. We pour so much energy into what sits on the plate. The mood around it matters at least as much, and usually more. The table is the first conversation a body ever has. If every parent could change one thing about the way they feed their children, what would you want it to be? Stop treating every meal as an exam you can pass or fail. If I could change one thing, it would be the pressure. Pressure to clean the plate, to finish the vegetable, to hit some invisible standard by bedtime. It always comes from love. But it quietly teaches a child to eat for approval instead of hunger, and that is a lesson that can take decades to unlearn. Feeding a child well is not a daily test. It is a slow, repetitive, mostly unglamorous practice of offering good food in a calm room and trusting the child to meet it in their own time. Some days, it looks like a balanced plate. On plenty of days, it looks like three bites of pasta and a flat refusal on everything else. Both are completely fine. Pull the camera back. You are not raising a single dinner. You are raising an eater for life. If parents could hold onto that one idea, the table would get lighter, and so would they. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Anastasia Schenk

Written by David Henzell, Sobriety Coach David Henzell is a qualified addiction therapist, accredited recovery coach, and founder of Phenomenal Sobriety, a transformative recovery programme built on his signature THRIVE Sobriety System. He brings eight years of personal sobriety and three decades of professional experience to everything he writes. A Guardian columnist wrote something this week that I haven’t quite been able to put down. Amy Galliford, an associate of the Centre for Public Christianity, described catching herself reaching for ChatGPT the way she reaches for prayer. It started with recipes and poems. Then, almost without noticing, she was asking it to read her relationships, her habits, and her future. She knows it can hallucinate. She knows it has no moral obligation to her. Still, in the moment of asking, she finds herself soothed by the tidiness of a five point plan and a voice that at least sounds certain. Her argument is more interesting than mere unease, and she reaches back through the mystics to make it. Prayer, for the philosopher Simone Weil, was a form of attention, and in the original French, that word is bound up with waiting. To contemplate, Galliford points out, shares a root with temple. The gap between a question and its answer is, in her telling, a kind of sacred ground, and the trouble with the machine is that it hustles her off that ground too fast. It relieves her discomfort, and in doing so, robs her of the waiting. I read that as a person of no particular faith, and I think she’s right. I also have an unusual reason to care, because I spend my days building the very kind of machine she’s describing. I’m building an AI companion for people who are quietly wondering whether they drink too much. Not people in crisis, not people in treatment, but the much larger group sitting in the uncomfortable middle, asking a question they’re not ready to answer. And here’s the thing I most want you to take away, because it cuts against the way AI is usually sold to us, the instant answer is not the prize. With the questions that matter most, it’s the booby trap. The genuine value of this technology, the thing it can do that almost nothing else in a person’s life can, only shows up when you build it to hold back. Let me make that concrete, because it’s easy to nod at in the abstract and miss in practice. Imagine someone types this at two in the morning, “I think I might be drinking too much” The unhelpful machine resolves it. It returns a definition of alcohol use disorder, a screening score, a five point plan, and a list of services. Tidy, fast, confident and almost always useless, because the person didn’t ask to be assessed. They worked up the nerve to say a frightening sentence out loud for the first time, and they got handed a leaflet. The helpful machine does something harder. It stays with the person. It might simply ask what’s making them wonder tonight. It leaves the question open long enough for them to hear their own answer, which is nearly always truer and more durable than anything a machine could hand them. Galliford has a lovely word for the space that opens up when you do that. She calls it the waiting. In her world, it’s a spiritual discipline. In mine, it’s a clinical necessity. The vocabularies differ, the instinct is identical. The gap has to be protected. That’s the reframe I’d offer anyone thinking about where AI actually helps. Used well, it isn’t a faster oracle. It’s something stranger and more useful, a place to start being honest, available at the exact moment a person is ready, with no appointment, no waiting list, and no human on the other side to flinch. That last part is not a flaw to apologise for. For a great many people, it’s the whole reason they can finally ask. So when AI is built with care, what does it actually give people? Here’s what I’d put on the list. Access at the moment of readiness. Courage to ask a hard question rarely arrives in office hours. It arrives at midnight, in the car, in the gap between one drink and the decision about the next. A tool that’s simply there, instantly and without judgment, meets a person in a window that human services, for all their value, usually miss. That alone is a genuine good. Honesty without consequence. People will tell a machine things they cannot yet tell their partner, their GP, or themselves. The absence of a human listener lowers the stakes of the first admission. Handled responsibly, that’s not isolating, it’s a rehearsal space for a truth that’s too heavy to say out loud anywhere else first. Restraint, on purpose. This is the rare one, and the most valuable. The ability to answer is not the obligation to. Almost all design effort in AI goes into making systems more responsive, more confident, more sticky. Building one that knows when not to resolve a question runs against the grain of the entire technology. But that restraint, the willingness to reflect rather than rule, is exactly what turns a clever tool into a genuinely supportive one. A bridge, not a destination. This is the one I feel most strongly, and the line I’d ask anyone building in this space to hold. Success is not how much someone confides in the machine. It’s whether confiding in the machine makes it one degree easier to confide in a person. Anything worth building has to treat itself as a doorway back toward human support, never a replacement for it. The day a tool like this becomes someone’s only confidant, it has failed, however good the conversation. The truth about what it is. None of the above works without this underneath it. A system that lets a vulnerable person believe it understands them, remembers them, or cares about them, when it does none of those things in any real sense, is running a confidence trick. Honesty about the limits of the tool isn’t a disclaimer to bury in the footer. It’s the foundation the other four stand on. Notice that not one of those is about giving better answers. They’re about giving people room, timing, safety, and a way back. That’s the version of AI I think is worth getting excited about, and it’s almost the opposite of the faster, cleverer, more certain machine we’re usually promised. None of this is theoretical for me The companion I’m building is named Sol. Early on, I assumed the hard part would be making it knowledgeable enough about alcohol and recovery. It wasn’t. The genuinely hard part was teaching it not to diagnose. To meet “I think I might be drinking too much” not with an assessment, but with curiosity. To hold the question open long enough for the person to hear themselves. To protect the wait, and to know it is a place to start, never the place to stay. Galliford ends by deciding she’ll take her questions to God instead of the machine, and I won’t argue with her. But not everyone has a temple to walk into. Some of the people I build for have nowhere they feel safe to ask at all, and they reach for a chatbot at two in the morning precisely because it’s the only thing that won’t flinch. We can build things that exploit that, answering too fast and too confidently because confidence is what keeps people coming back. Or we can build things that honour it, that tell the truth about what they are, that have the restraint to leave a question open, and that quietly point back toward the irreplaceable business of being known by another person. Galliford is right that not knowing can bring us closer to the truth. The least the rest of us can do is build things that know that too, and use them for what they’re genuinely good at. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from David Henzell David Henzell, Sobriety Coach David Henzell writes at the intersection of sobriety, identity, and personal transformation. With eight years of personal recovery and a professional background spanning addiction therapy, creative practice, and academia, he brings a rare combination of lived experience and clinical insight to his work. He is the founder of Phenomenal Sobriety, a premium recovery programme built on his signature THRIVE Sobriety System, combining evidence-based techniques, AI companion support, and genuine community. David's approach draws on meaning-centred psychology and a restless curiosity, resisting the dogma of traditional recovery culture. His mission is simple, to help people who don't fit the conventional recovery mould find their own way through.

Written by Jenny Gaynor, Social Emotional Learning Coach and Founder Jenny Gaynor, author and founder of Calm Education, teaches SEL tools to help kids, families, and teachers build confidence, connection, and calm. July is peppered with fireworks, flags, and celebrations of independence. We gather with family, enjoy longer days, and embrace the slower rhythm that summer can bring. But for many adults, especially parents, educators, and caregivers, independence can feel surprisingly out of reach. We spend so much of the rest of the year caring for others. We manage schedules, solve problems, support students, coordinate family activities, and make sure everyone’s needs are met. In the process, our own needs often move quietly to the bottom of the list. As we celebrate our nation’s independence this month, perhaps it is also an opportunity to consider our own. What would it look like to reclaim our time, care for ourselves, and appreciate what is already present in our lives? This summer, I invite you to give yourselves the following three gifts: 1. The freedom to choose As adults, we often lose sight of our own autonomy. Our calendars become filled with obligations, responsibilities, and commitments to others. We become so accustomed to saying yes that we forget we still have choices. Freedom doesn’t always mean taking a vacation or making a major life change. Sometimes freedom looks much smaller. It might mean taking a walk alone or declining an invitation. It might mean reading a book in the backyard instead of folding another load of laundry. It might mean returning to a hobby that once brought you joy. Many of us encourage our children and students to become independent thinkers, yet we rarely ask ourselves, “What do I need?” Permitting ourselves to answer that question honestly is the best act of independence we can offer ourselves. 2. Productive rest For many adults, self-care has become another task to complete. Social media often presents self-care as spa days, expensive products, or elaborate routines. While those things can certainly be enjoyable, true self-care is often much simpler and a lot less expensive. Simply put, self-care can be getting enough sleep. It can be drinking water, moving your body, and spending time outside. It is attending your doctor’s appointment, asking for help, setting boundaries, or taking ten quiet minutes before the rest of the household wakes up. As educators and caregivers, we often believe that our worth is connected to our productivity. We feel guilty when we rest. We convince ourselves that there will be time later. But rest is not something we earn. It is something we require. Just as we encourage children to take brain breaks, practice mindfulness, and regulate their emotions, adults need those same opportunities. Rest allows us to return to our relationships and responsibilities with greater patience, clarity, and compassion. Taking care of ourselves isn’t selfish. It is productive and sustainable. 3. The practice of gratitude Summer has a way of reminding us to slow down. The longer evenings, warm air, and changing routines can invite us to notice the small moments that often go unseen during the busy school year. Gratitude doesn’t ask us to ignore challenges. Instead, it invites us to pay attention to what is already present. It asks us to pay attention to the conversation around the dinner table, the sound of children laughing outside, a quiet cup of coffee, a supportive colleague, or a sunset at the end of a long day. Research continues to show that gratitude can improve emotional wellbeing, reduce stress, and strengthen relationships. Yet gratitude doesn’t have to be complicated. You might keep a small notebook by your bed and write down three things you are thankful for each evening. Or maybe you choose to share appreciations with your family during dinner. You may even simply pause and notice one good thing during your day. Gratitude shifts our focus from what is missing to what is meaningful. A different kind of independence As fireworks light the sky this July, perhaps we can celebrate a different kind of independence. We can celebrate the freedom to listen to ourselves, care for our own wellbeing, and appreciate the life we are living. Parents, educators, and caregivers spend much of their lives helping others grow. This summer, perhaps we can offer ourselves the same kindness and attention that we so freely give away. The gifts of freedom, rest, and gratitude aren’t luxuries. They are practices that help us reconnect with ourselves and with the people we love. This season, may we permit ourselves to choose what we need, to rest without guilt, and to find gratitude in the ordinary moments that make up our lives. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Jenny Gaynor Jenny Gaynor, Social Emotional Learning Coach and Founder Jenny Gaynor is the author and founder of Calm Education. She teaches children, families, and teachers essential SEL (Social Emotional Learning) skills. Her mission is to help others build confidence, resilience, and healthy connections. Jenny is a former educator with over 20 years of classroom experience. She holds certifications in both elementary and special education. Jenny also has training in yoga, meditation, and SEL facilitation. She lives in Barrington, Rhode Island, with her family and therapy cat, Tiller.

Written by Lydia Linise, Founder of MHB Academy Lydia Linise is the UK's leading pioneer in halal brow bleaching, a faith-aligned beauty technique she brought to light and has taught to 300+ professionals across 15+ countries through her academy, MHB Academy. In 2021, if a Muslim woman wanted her brows done, her options were these, one YouTube tutorial, one product on the market that most people tried and hated, and nothing else. No professional service. No trained specialist. No industry conversation. Just women quietly figuring it out at home, alone, with no guidance and no community. Four years later, the hashtag #halalbrows has nearly 20,000 posts, major beauty brands are creating dedicated content and products, and a global market worth over forty billion dollars is demanding to be served. This is the story of how a technique went from invisible to unstoppable. Before there was a service, there was a problem no one was solving The starting point matters. To understand how significant the rise of halal brow bleaching is, you have to understand just how empty the space was before it. For many observant Muslim women, the ruling they follow is clear, removing brow hairs through threading, waxing, or tweezing is not permitted. This is not a fringe interpretation. It is a mainstream ruling that affects millions of women worldwide. Yet, for decades, the beauty industry simply did not acknowledge it. Brow services were built entirely around removal. If you could not remove it, you had nothing. The workaround that existed was not a solution. There was one YouTube tutorial circulating in Muslim beauty communities, grainy, informal, with no product guidance and no safety information. There was one bleaching product on the market that women were attempting to use on their brows at home. Most of them hated it. The results were unpredictable and often yellow, the formula was not designed for thick brows, and there was no professional anywhere to ask for help. The demand was real. The industry response was silence. A technique that existed, but not here Halal brow bleaching did not emerge from nothing. The technique has roots in the Gulf, particularly Qatar and the wider Middle East, where brow decolouration had been practised within Muslim communities for decades. Women there had developed their own methods, passed knowledge between themselves, and built a quiet tradition around a need the mainstream beauty world ignored. In Europe, that knowledge simply did not travel. The technique was invisible, not because it did not exist, but because no one had translated it into a professional service, built a curriculum around it, or brought it into the mainstream beauty conversation. In the UK in 2021, there was no certified training, no dedicated product line designed for professionals, and no brow artist offering it as a formal service. I was among the first to change that. Working from home during my baby’s nap times, I began developing the method, testing products, and building a protocol that could be taught and replicated safely. I started sharing the work on social media not to build a brand, but because I genuinely could not believe no one else was talking about it. The response told me everything I needed to know about the size of the need. What halal brow bleaching actually is The technique is precisely what the name suggests. Brow bleaching, or decolouration, uses a powder and developer to lighten the brow hairs until they create a fade effect on the skin, rather than removing them. Combined with brow mapping, which uses the client’s natural bone structure and measurements to follow the natural shape, the result is a defined, polished brow that requires no hair removal whatsoever. For the client, this means something profound, a beauty service she is allowed to have. Not a compromise. Not a workaround. A full, professional brow treatment that respects her faith and delivers results she can be proud of. For the brow artist, it means a technique that builds directly on existing skills, including mapping, product knowledge, and skin prep, with the addition of specific bleaching protocol and safety training. Done correctly, it is one of the most precise and controlled brow techniques available. The variables, including skin type, hair density, timing, and formula, require training to manage well, which is exactly why professional certification matters. This is not a DIY treatment with a professional label on it. It is a genuine skill set. From invisible to unstoppable: The numbers behind the rise What has happened in the four years since is difficult to overstate. In 2021, the hashtag #halalbrows had fewer than 100 posts. Today, it sits at nearly 20,000, and that figure does not capture the full volume of content being created across TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram under related searches. Halal brow content is no longer a niche corner of beauty social media. It is a genre. The market data reflects the same trajectory. According to Research and Markets, the global halal cosmetics market was valued at over forty billion dollars in 2024 and is growing at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 14%. It is projected to reach over eighty billion dollars by 2029. This is not a trend. This is a structural shift in the global beauty industry, driven by demographics, rising consumer awareness, and a generation of Muslim women who have grown up expecting their needs to be met. The brands have noticed For years, the halal beauty conversation happened in spite of the mainstream industry, not because of it. That has changed. Major beauty brands are now creating dedicated halal certified product lines. Beauty media, including the publications, YouTube channels, and newsletters that shape industry conversation, are running features on halal brow techniques. The content exists not just on personal accounts and community pages, but on the platforms of brands with millions of followers. The industry has recognised that ignoring this market is no longer a viable position. Yet, on the ground, in the brow studios and beauty salons, the service still barely exists. The content is there. The demand is there. The trained professional who can actually deliver the treatment is still, in most places, nowhere to be found. That gap between awareness and access is exactly where the opportunity lives. The UK picture The domestic numbers tell their own story. According to the Muslim Council of Britain’s analysis of the 2021 ONS Census, the UK Muslim population now stands at four million people, a figure that grew significantly in a single decade. Approximately two million of those are women. They are concentrated in Birmingham, Bradford, Manchester, London, and dozens of smaller cities and towns across the country. These are not women who are unaware of halal brows. Thanks to social media, many of them have been watching the conversation develop for years. They know the technique exists. They are searching for someone who offers it. In most places, they are still not finding anyone. The brow artist who gets trained now, positions herself clearly, and shows up consistently for this clientele is not entering a competitive market. She is entering a market with almost no competition and a clientele that is already looking for her. Where the industry goes from here The trajectory is clear. The halal beauty market is not slowing down. The Muslim population in the UK is young. According to ONS data, people who identified as Muslim had the youngest average age of the tick box religious groups in England and Wales, which means the client base for halal beauty services will continue to grow for decades. The brands know it. The social media numbers confirm it. The demand is not going anywhere. What is still catching up is professional provision. The training infrastructure, the certified specialists, and the studio menus that actually include halal brow services. That is the gap that remains, and it is closing faster than most people in the industry realise. In 2021, there was one YouTube tutorial and one product nobody liked. In 2026, there are trained professionals, a growing body of certified curricula, and a market that is only just beginning to understand its own scale. The technique did not rise because someone invented a trend. It rose because the need was always there, and finally, someone decided to meet it. Ready to be part of what comes next? MHB Academy is the UK’s first professional training institution specialising in halal brow bleaching. Our certified courses are designed for qualified brow artists ready to add this technique to their menu and serve a clientele that has been waiting for them. Explore our programmes at MHB Academy. Follow me on Instagram for more info! Read more from Lydia Linise Lydia Linise, Founder of MHB Academy Lydia Linise is the UK's leading pioneer in halal brow bleaching, a faith-aligned grooming technique she brought to light and built an entire training academy around. As the founder of MHB Academy, she has trained 300+ beauty professionals across 15+ countries, helping them add an exclusive, in-demand service to their practice. A French-born revert and mother of three, Lydia built her business from the ground up during nap times, proving that faith, femininity, and entrepreneurship are not just compatible, but powerful together. Through her courses, mentorship, and podcast "Become the Reference," she is on a mission to make halal brow bleaching a global industry standard.

Written by Paul Adamson, Trusted Advisor to Founders & Leadership Teams Under Pressure Paul Adamson is a global keynote speaker and leadership strategist who helps organisations navigate change, build resilient teams, and create breakthrough performance. His work blends real-world experience from being a professional sailor and pivoting into the business world. You had a vision. Not just for the business, but for the life it would give you. The business was the vehicle. The means. The thing that would, one day, soon, when things settled down, give you the freedom to live the way you actually wanted to live. But somewhere along the way, the vehicle became the destination. The life you were building toward? It’s still waiting on the other side of the next hire, the next quarter, the next crisis you didn’t see coming. Sound familiar? The yacht in the marina I work with a particular type of founder. Successful, smart, driven, and usually passionate about the sport of sailing. Almost without exception, they share one quiet admission that sits underneath all the strategy, the growth plans, and the forward momentum. They built the business to fund a life on the water and then the business took the life. I had a client, I’ll call him Harry, who had done everything right. Built something real. Created genuine value and bought himself a beautiful yacht. A serious yacht. The kind of vessel that was supposed to represent arrival. The reward for all those years of sacrifice and focus. When I took him to see her for the first time, he stood on the pontoon, and his eyes filled with tears. Not because he was happy, but because in that moment, he understood, with complete clarity, that he had no idea when he would ever get to sail her. The business wouldn’t let him go. That moment crystallised everything I do. My core purpose, in one image, a man standing next to his dream, unable to climb aboard. I enable dreams. But first, I help people understand what’s keeping them on the pontoon. The trap no one talks about Here’s what I’ve observed across years of working with founders and leadership teams. The business doesn’t steal your life through failure. It steals it through success. When you’re struggling, the urgency is obvious. You have to be there. You have no choice. You’re firefighting, surviving, keeping the thing alive. But then it starts to work. Revenue grows. The team expands. The complexity increases. Instead of the business needing you less, it seems to need you more. More decisions. More relationships. More responsibility. More surface area to defend. You become, without ever choosing it, the lighthouse keeper who can never leave the lighthouse. The sea, the life, the freedom, the thing you were sailing toward, sits there on the horizon. Visible. Wanted. Just never quite reached. What’s actually happening I spent years at sea before I spent years in business. Two hundred and fifty thousand miles offshore, including a full circumnavigation of the globe. The ocean teaches you many things. But perhaps the most important is this, you cannot navigate by looking at your feet. You need a horizon. A fixed point. A heading. Most founders I meet are running their business with their eyes down. Managing what’s in front of them. Reacting to what arrives. Solving, fixing, responding, but never truly navigating toward the life they originally set course for. The technical term in sailing is dead reckoning. You work out where you are by tracking your speed, your direction, and your time. Then you plot a course to where you want to go. The problem is that most founders are so consumed by the speed, by the pace of the business, the demands, the noise, that they’ve lost track of the direction entirely. They’re moving fast. But they don’t know where they’re heading and the life they wanted? It’s not on any chart they’re currently looking at. The question worth asking I want to ask you something, and I want you to sit with it honestly. If your business gave you a month off tomorrow, genuinely, completely off, nothing burning, team running, revenue flowing, would you know what to do with it? Or has so much of your identity fused with the role that the freedom would feel more frightening than the work? This is not a criticism. I’ve sat with this question myself, in difficult circumstances, and found the answer harder than I expected. But it matters. Because the answer tells you whether you own your business or your business owns you. Getting back on the boat The good news, and there is good news, is that this isn’t fixed. The founders I work with who make the shift share a common turning point. Not a strategy change. Not a restructure. Not a new hire or a better system, though those things often follow. The turning point is a decision about identity. They stop being a founder who wants a life and become a person who has a life and happens to run a business. That sounds simple. It isn’t. But it’s the work and it’s the most important work a founder can do, not just for themselves, but for every person who works for them, every client who depends on them, and every relationship that has been quietly put on hold until things settle down. Things won’t settle down on their own. You have to choose to settle them. The yacht in the marina is not a reward waiting at the end. It’s a signal. A reminder of what you’re actually here for. The question is whether you’re willing to climb aboard. Be the lighthouse, not the weather My whole philosophy rests on one distinction. The weather is reactive. Unpredictable. At the mercy of conditions it didn’t choose and can’t control. The lighthouse holds steady. It doesn’t change its signal when the storm arrives. It knows what it is, where it stands, and what it’s for and ships find their way home because of it. The founders who build businesses that fund and free them, not trap them, are the ones who make the shift from weather to lighthouse. Grounded in who they are. Clear on where they’re going. Consistent enough that the people around them can navigate by their light. Harry eventually sailed that yacht. It took work on the business, but more importantly, on himself. On the decisions he’d been deferring, the boundaries he’d been avoiding, and the clarity he’d been too busy to find. When he cast off the lines for the first time, he sent me a simple message, “Paul, I’m free!” That’s why I do this work. So which are you, the lighthouse or the weather? If you recognised any part of Harry in this article, the success that somehow built a cage instead of freedom, I’d ask you one thing before you close this page. Take three minutes and find out where you actually stand. The Lighthouse Check is a free scorecard I built using the same five-part framework, State, Horizon, Identity, Navigate, and Energy, that I use with every founder I coach. It won’t tell you what you want to hear. It’ll tell you what’s actually true, right now, about how you’re leading yourself and your business. It’s not a pitch, and you won’t get a sales call you didn’t ask for. Just clarity. Run the Lighthouse Check here. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Paul Adamson Paul Adamson, Trusted Advisor to Founders & Leadership Teams Under Pressure Paul Adamson is an international keynote speaker and leadership strategist known for helping organisations navigate change, build resilient teams, and unlock high-performance cultures. His journey began at sea, where he skippered a 27,000-mile global circumnavigation before leading the commercial turnaround of Oyster Yachts from administration to a £185M order book. Paul’s work blends high-stakes decision-making with practical leadership tools that drive real-world results. A cancer survivor, he speaks powerfully about resilience, purpose, and optimistic leadership. Today, he works with entrepreneurs, founders, and executive teams worldwide, helping them create breakthroughs that move them from where they are to where they want to be.

Liz Bell is a Career and Positive Intelligence® Coach who helps purpose-driven women overcome burnout, self-doubt and unhelpful mental habits to create fulfilling and impactful careers. In this interview, Liz shares the hidden mental patterns and misconceptions that can lead to burnout, keep people stuck in their careers, and recreate burnout even after changing jobs, a practical skill to create greater self-awareness before making any major change, and the power of mental fitness to meet all challenges in work and life. Liz Bell, Career and Positive Intelligence® Coach What first made you realise that burnout was not just about workload, but about the way we think and respond to challenges? I had switched careers. Things seemed to be going really well. Then I noticed I was starting to feel frustrated more and more. This was how I had felt in the lead-up to my experience of burnout. I was noticing similar patterns of behaviour, such as staying busy with low-priority tasks, neglecting my own goals in favour of supporting others, and putting off some tasks until I felt ready. The situation was different. The work was different. The challenges were different. The responses were the same. I was also seeing it in my clients. They were making great progress when they were working with me. Once they left me, their progress faltered. The responses to the new challenges were the same as to the old challenges. If I were going to have the business I wanted and be able to help my clients achieve sustainable change, I needed to understand these patterns of thinking, where they came from, and what could be done to address them. In your experience, what hidden patterns most often keep purpose-driven women stuck in careers that no longer feel aligned? The most common hidden patterns keeping purpose-driven women stuck in careers that no longer feel aligned are not being able to set and maintain clear boundaries in the workplace, such as saying yes when you really want to say no, working harder in order to catch up with work not completed during times of supporting others or focusing on low-priority tasks, perfectionism, getting caught up in the details on projects that are already good enough, doing the next thing and the next and you’ll have demonstrated your value, and being hyper aware of the risks in everything and losing focus and connection to what truly matters. The misalignment comes not from the career but from how these hidden patterns can distract them from doing the work in a meaningful way. You combine career coaching with Positive Intelligence®. What shifts when someone starts strengthening their mental fitness alongside making career decisions? They start to recognise their self-sabotaging behaviours and are able to respond to them with compassion rather than judgement. This leads to seeing greater possibilities and making bolder, more aligned career decisions. A client who lacked the confidence in her entrepreneurship to increase the income of her business identified and implemented a new structure that increased her income and the number of clients she could serve. In one month, these changes had given her a return on her investment in coaching of 100%. They make decisions aligned with their goals, not their fears. A client was offered two roles. One easy and safe. The other felt more fulfilling, aligned, and challenging. Strengthening her mental fitness helped her make a decision that supported her professional growth. She is still in the role today and has never regretted the decision. They are able to renew their professional confidence and see their true value. A senior manager with a 30-plus-year career in the legal sector was judging her future opportunities by her lack of secondary school qualifications. With the help of strengthening her mental fitness, she was able to accept that her extraordinary career was evidence of her abilities and is now using her extensive knowledge and skills as a business consultant. Why do some people recreate the same burnout patterns even after changing jobs, industries, or starting their own business? The same burnout patterns are recreated even after changing jobs, industries, or starting their own business, because they are unconscious patterns. These patterns remain hidden from us until we shine a light on them and bring them into view. It’s like being on autopilot. So, circumstances show up that create stress, frustration, self-doubt, and they repeat the patterns in response to these feelings. When they don’t have the skills and/or the self-knowledge to be able to recognise these patterns for what they are, they might start criticising themselves, others or the circumstances. This compounds the patterned behaviour and increases the stress patterns that can lead to burnout. The change has provided some relief from their stress. It’s like putting a plaster on an open wound. The wound won’t heal properly and will cause problems again in the future. What misconceptions about career fulfillment do you see most often in ambitious women today? Most ambitious women today see career fulfillment as being about what they do, where they do it, how they do it, or who they do it with or for. Don’t get me wrong, these things are important too. But unless they’ve done the internal work first, it’s difficult to truly identify the environmental factors that they need to thrive. Fulfillment is an inside job. We feel most fulfilled when we are focused and energised. It’s one of the reasons ambitious women have a hard time finding a fulfilling job. They focus on the what, where, and who, not the how. When we show up to something we don’t want to do with negative emotions and thinking there can be little or no fulfillment. Not in the doing or the completion. But when we show up with more positive emotions and thinking, we can have a greater sense of fulfillment, even in the most mundane of essential tasks. When someone feels trapped between financial security and meaningful work, where should they begin? What I often see is women focusing on job titles and salaries. They struggle to find anything that looks like meaningful work because they haven’t established what financial security and meaningful work mean to them. They should always start with the money. After all, we can’t survive without it. What we need is personal. Do the maths. Be clear about what is needed. So few women do this. Even fewer talk to the co-contributors of the household income. Shame, guilt, and self-doubt often get in the way. Some of the women I work with are often surprised to learn what they actually spend and what on. There is a big difference between financial security and maintaining the same level of income. Unless all their earnings go on the rent/mortgage, car, kids, food and household bills, there’s often something left over. Once they know exactly what financial security actually looks like, they can make informed decisions about current and future spending and saving. That’s when the work on what ‘meaningful work’ looks like for them can begin. We’re far more creative in our thinking when we’re not feeling the stress of insecurity. Meaningful work can then take on many forms and even come with many income streams. What is one small practice that can help people build greater self-awareness before making a major career change? One small practice that can help people build greater self-awareness before making a major career change is to connect with their life goals. To create a space for quiet contemplation of what will be most important to them at the end of their lives. The act of considering ourselves at the end of our lives, healthy of mind and body, looking back, having lived a full and happy life, can be really helpful when thinking about what is most important for us to consider when making a major career change. Considering domains of our life, such as relationships, spirituality, wellness, finances, and career, can illuminate what is truly important to us. Becoming aware of this can help generate greater self-awareness and inform the alignment of any major career change with our bigger goals. How has your own journey through burnout shaped the way you support clients today? I have so much more compassion for myself, and that enables me to have a lot of compassion for my clients! Burnout sucks! For me, it led me away from everything that I held dear, my values, my goals, and dreams, and I went to a very dark place. My mental health suffered, and I had to take time off work to recover. I am also aware that what led to my burnout and is hampering my clients is something that is common to most of us, life-saving strategies developed in early life that haven’t been updated to respond to the challenges we face as adults. I don’t see burnout as a personal failure. It is a misalignment between what we are doing and what we need to do to achieve our goals. I see it as an opportunity for a reset, a do-over. What I teach my clients is the very same mental fitness practice I use every day. It supports my sustainably fulfilling career whilst reducing the occurrence of patterned behaviour that can lead to burnout. I know it can support them in the same way, too. If readers take away one idea about creating a sustainable and fulfilling career, what would you want it to be? In a word, adaptation. Mental fitness is the ability to adapt to the challenges of work and life with a positive mindset. A career is not a job. It is all the jobs you will have across the course of your lifetime. That may take place in different sectors, in different countries, and in different stages of your life. Adaptation is about how you approach your work, how you adjust to your environment, and how you modify your behaviour to get the best out of others without losing who you are. Learning to be adaptable in this way is key to creating a meaningful and fulfilling career sustainably. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Liz Bell

Written by Michael Ritchie, Transformational Coach Michael is a Transformational Coach, Sound Healer, Numerologist & Human Design practitioner, & Sacred Medicine Holder. He is the in-house Healer & Mentor at Harmony P.E.C., leading the sacred healing team & co-facilitating the virtual Universal Foundations and Adept Courses to help seekers better understand their power & unique path. Your path to the light is through your chakras. Each Chakra has its own character, its own gifts to embrace, and its own fears to neutralize. The journey begins in the Root Chakra and progresses through the four stages of the Crown Chakra, with each increase in vibration being anchored in the Heart. Root Chakra Color: Red Element: Earth Vibration: 50 Location: The Root Chakra, also known as the Muladhara Chakra, is located at the base of the spine, between the anus and the genitals. It is characterized by the emotions of survival, stability, ambition, and self sufficiency. Body connection: The Root Chakra is associated with the adrenal glands, kidneys, and lower digestive system. Chronic lower back pain, fatigue, and immune issues are commonly linked to imbalance here. Symptoms of a blocked Root Chakra: When this chakra is out of balance, a person starts feeling unstable, ungrounded, lacking ambition, lacking purpose, fearful, insecure, and frustrated. Signs of a balanced or imbalanced Root Chakra: However, when the Root Chakra is balanced, these are replaced by more positive emotions, and you feel stable, confident, balanced, energetic, independent, and strong. Experience: The Root Chakra is not fun unless the Heart is open. This is the Chakra of survival, although with an open Heart, it is beautiful, just like all the others. With an open Heart, the Root Chakra is our connection with the Earth and all her magnificent beauty and wisdom. This is also the Chakra through which we ground our higher energies to connect us with her and let go of our fears and negative energies. Sacral Chakra Color: Orange Element: Water Vibration: 100 Location: The Svadhishthana Chakra, more commonly known as the Sacral Chakra, is located in the lower abdomen, about four fingers below the navel. Its attributes include the basic need for sexuality, as well as creativity and self worth. Body connection: The Sacral Chakra governs the reproductive organs, bladder, kidneys, and lower intestines. An imbalance can show up as hormonal disruption, lower back pain, or persistent urinary issues. Symptoms of a blocked or imbalanced Sacral Chakra: When the Sacral Chakra is imbalanced, a person may feel emotionally explosive and irritable, sense a lack of energy and creativity, feel manipulative, or be obsessed with sexual thoughts. Signs of a balanced Sacral Chakra: When balanced, it makes one feel more vibrant, happy, positive, satisfied, compassionate, and intuitive. Experience: This is our Chakra of creation. Unless the Heart is closed, then it is destruction. All our inner beauty comes from this Chakra, including dance, poetry, art, music, sexuality, inventions, and creating new public systems. That said, when cut off from the Heart, it is filled with pain and destruction, judgement, and prejudice, which are then spread through all we come in contact with. Solar Plexus Chakra Color: Yellow Element: Fire Vibration: 200 Location: The Manipura Chakra is located at the solar plexus, between the navel and the bottom of the rib cage. It is characterized by emotions like ego, anger, and aggression. Body connection: Manipura governs the stomach, liver, gallbladder, and small intestines. Physically, imbalance often appears as digestive disorders, blood sugar irregularities, or adrenal fatigue. Symptoms of a blocked or imbalanced Solar Plexus Chakra: An imbalance of the Solar Plexus Chakra can manifest physically as digestive problems, liver problems, or diabetes. On an emotional level, one might struggle with depression, lack of self esteem, anger, and perfectionism. Signs of a balanced Solar Plexus Chakra: By balancing this chakra, we feel more energetic, confident, productive, and focused. Experience: As this is the brain of the Body, it is also the center of the egoic self, the master of self preservation, so to speak. This is the little devil arguing with the angel upon your shoulders. It is the false ceiling that convinces you that you know, even when you’ve yet to have the experience, so in truth, you only THINK you know! The issue with listening to your gut is that you are not balancing the fullness of Soul, Mind, and Body, as the Solar Plexus blocks the Mind and Soul from your awareness. In other words, don’t listen to your gut. Listen to your heart. Heart Chakra Color: Green Element: Air Vibration: 300 Lower, 400 High Heart Location: As the name implies, the Anahata Chakra is located in the heart region. This chakra is the seat of balance, and it is characterized by emotions of love, attachment, compassion, trust, and passion. Body connection: Anahata governs the heart, lungs, circulatory system, and thymus gland. Upper back tension, shallow breathing, and chest tightness are often physical expressions of Heart Chakra imbalance. Symptoms of a blocked or imbalanced Heart Chakra: When the Heart Chakra is imbalanced, a person may deal with emotional issues like anger, lack of trust, anxiety, jealousy, fear, and moodiness. Signs of a balanced Heart Chakra: By harmonizing this energy center, a person begins to feel more compassionate, caring, optimistic, friendly, and motivated. Experience: This is the master Chakra, the center of the entire system. From here, you have access to all Chakras, as well as access to the Mind and Body through the Soul. The Heart is where we live our daily lives, combining both tools of the Mind and Body to bring our best selves to the world. It is through the Heart that we bring Love, Compassion, Gratitude, and Forgiveness to ourselves, our families, our communities, and the world. Reality, as we believe it to be, is dependent upon it, as this is the balancing point, the fulcrum that balances it all. It is in the Heart Chakra where we find our spirit guides and animals, as well as ancestors, mystical creatures, and beings. Throat Chakra Color: Blue Element: Space Vibration: 500 Location: The Visuddha Chakra is located at the base of the throat, coinciding with the thyroid gland. It is associated with inspiration, healthy expression, faith, and the ability to communicate well. Body connection: The Throat Chakra is connected to the thyroid and parathyroid glands, vocal cords, neck, and jaw. Recurring sore throats, thyroid dysfunction, and jaw tension are common physical signs of imbalance here. Symptoms of a blocked or imbalanced Throat Chakra: A blockage in the Throat Chakra may be experienced as timidity, quietness, a feeling of weakness, or the inability to express our thoughts. Signs of a balanced Throat Chakra: When this chakra is balanced, it enables creativity, positive self expression, constructive communication, and a sense of satisfaction. Experience: Our Throat Chakra is our tool of manifestation. It is through this tool of creation that we manifest the very reality we call our lives, though its power does not end here. The Throat Chakra includes the ears and nose as well, which are used to listen and experience the energies around us. It is through receiving and listening that we gain the fullness of this power, for it is through our awareness of the energies surrounding us, not the words, not the phenomena, but the vibrations, that show us truth. This is the Chakra of the Gods. It’s where the Archetypes, the Orishas, the Archangels, and the Gods of old live. In ancient times, this was considered enlightenment, for it is the seat of Wisdom. With an open Heart, this is a beautiful vibration, with it closed, you try to control the world. The path of “Service to Self” is limited to this vibration, with the highest of this nature being limited to the lower vibrations of the Third Eye Chakra. Third Eye Chakra Color: Indigo Element: None Vibration: 600 Location: The Ajna Chakra, pronounced “Agya Chakra,” is located between the eyebrows. Also known as the Third Eye Chakra, it is often used as a focal point during asana practice to develop more concentration and awareness. Classical texts, including the Siva Samhita, describe sustained meditation on Ajna as a pathway to liberation, a claim best understood within the broader framework of yogic philosophy rather than as a literal promise. Body connection: Ajna is associated with the pituitary gland, brain, eyes, and neurological system. Persistent headaches, difficulty concentrating, and disrupted sleep are frequently connected to imbalance in this chakra. Symptoms of a blocked or imbalanced Third Eye Chakra: When imbalanced, it may make you feel not assertive and afraid of success, or, on the contrary, it can make you more egotistical. An imbalance can manifest as physical problems like headaches, blurry vision, and eye strain. Signs of a balanced Third Eye Chakra: When this chakra is active and balanced, a person feels more vibrant and confident, both spiritually and emotionally. In the absence of the fear of death, one becomes one’s own master and remains free of all attachment to material things. Experience: This is where the two energies that intertwine within you merge together, balancing the masculine and feminine, the electric and magnetic, the light and shadow within. This is where you begin to realize just how enormous your potential really is. This is where you leave the Maya, the Mind, and begin listening to the Spirit. It is the Third Eye where we meet the Trinity, the conjoining of the Mind and Body with the Soul and Spirit. It is the very center of the Third Eye that opens the portal to the Crown, the Infinite Creator, and the Infinite Intelligence. This is the vibration of your OverSoul consciousness, the actual player of the game. Crown Chakra 1 Color: White/Violet Element: None Vibration: 700 Location: The Sahastrara, or Crown Chakra, is located at the crown of the head. The seventh chakra is the center of spirituality, enlightenment, and dynamic thought and energy. It allows for the inward flow of wisdom and brings the gift of cosmic consciousness. Body connection: The Crown Chakra is connected to the pineal gland and the central nervous system. Chronic exhaustion, sensitivity to light or sound, and a persistent sense of meaninglessness may indicate imbalance at this level. Symptoms of a blocked or imbalanced Crown Chakra: When it becomes imbalanced, one might suffer from a constant sense of frustration, melancholy, and destructive feelings. Signs of a balanced Crown Chakra: When the Crown Chakra is balanced, there is a quality of inner stillness and perspective that is not easily disrupted by external events. In teaching, this is often described by long term practitioners as the difference between having peace and being peaceful. Experience: In the Crown Chakra, we begin working directly with the Light. This is where you begin to realize just how BIG you really are. You are a divine being, One with the Light, even though you’ve been conditioned to believe you are small and without power. You are the Creator, the Game, and the Player, and this is where you begin to remember. The Crown Chakra is the teacher, mentor, and master you’ve been waiting for, as you are already all you’ve been working to become. You simply need to get quiet and listen. The Crown is where the Angels, Aliens, and Archetypes fall away, and you begin to realize they are all within you. This is the beginning of enlightenment. Crown Chakra 2 Vibration: 800 This is “The Field,” the Mother of all physical creation. It is the quantum field, which we collapse through our very presence, our level of consciousness, our beliefs, and our awareness into the experience we call reality, Life. The Field is a mirror of the All Mind, the Creator, the Source, and the Central Sun, Logos, which reflects the Multiverse. The “One” Mind, Sun, sub Logos, also creates a reflection of itself as our Solar System, only opposite, just as your life is a reflection of your Mind. You are a sub sub Logos, as it is your vibration that collapses the field into the vibration you are both holding and experiencing. In other words, you are a creator. Crown Chakra 3 Vibration: 900 Oneness! This vibration is where you become “One” with the “Oneness.” Yet a central speck of you still remains in the center of the energy sphere. It is not quite an “I,” as this separation of ego, of identity, still remains, yet it is no longer driving the avatar. The keys have been given over to the Infinite Creator and Infinite Intelligence, as they too have become “One.” It is here that you begin to realize what you truly are and the light you have within you to share with the world. The source Vibration: 1000 The All and Nothing. Here, your separate identity ceases to exist. There is no division of any kind remaining, as you have integrated completely with the Source, the All Mind, God. You are All and Nothing, experiencing all consciousness of plant, animal, fungi, all timelines, all dimensions and densities, and everything imaginable, simultaneously. There is no further to go, as from this point, the you that you currently identify with, the avatar playing the game, no longer exists in the old way. There are no questions left, nothing to do or become, as this is the totality of you. This is full enlightenment. Now, bring this fullness to the world and be the lighthouse of Love, Light, and Truth you came here to be. The only being you are here to heal is yourself, for this is the catalyst needed to heal others. Be the change the world needs, the lighthouse to guide those who seek the truth. Just "be". Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Michael Ritchie Michael Ritchie, Transformational Coach Michael holds many skills & among many, he is known as a Transformational Coach, Sound Healer, Numerologist & Human Design practitioner, Sacred Medicine Holder, and Channeler of Energy from the Eternal Creator. In 2011-12, he was told he had 6 months to a year to live. Since that day, he has dedicated his life to understanding awakening, enlightenment, and The Great Way. Funny how a death sentence lets you see what’s important, what’s not.

Written by Danielle Van de Velde, Meditation Teacher, Reiki Master, Psychic Medium, and Author Dani Van de Velde is a passionate advocate for living a spiritually aligned life in the modern world. She is a meditation teacher, Reiki Master, psychic medium, and author of Spirited. She is the founder of Spirited Living and Spirited Business online communities, a broadcaster on News for the Soul Radio, and host of The Modern Crone podcast. We are at the halfway point in The Mind & Magic of Manifesting, my annual program within the Spirited Living Community. The process combines psychology, personal responsibility, and magic, and something fascinating is unfolding. The changes people are experiencing have a less apparent connection to the goals they set at the beginning and a stronger connection to deep personal transformation. Some are releasing beliefs they have carried for decades. Others are finding themselves unexpectedly uncomfortable as old identities begin to fall away. Several have realised they were aiming too small. Many have stopped trying to force a particular relationship, outcome, or opportunity and have instead become curious about what might be possible beyond the narrow vision they originally held. A few have stumbled across books, mentors, opportunities, or pieces of guidance that seem to have appeared at exactly the right moment. Almost all of them are reporting an increase in synchronicities. Yet, if you asked them whether their manifestation had arrived, some would have clear evidence, and many would still say, “Not yet.” I would argue that it is absolutely happening. We expect the wrong evidence When people begin consciously working with manifestation, they often seek immediate external proof. The new job. The relationship. The money. The opportunity. The contract. The thing itself. But manifestation is rarely an isolated event. It is a process. Before our external world can change, things within us must change first. The person who can sustainably hold the relationship may be different from the person seeking it today. The person capable of leading the business, writing the book, earning the income, or stepping into the purpose may need to grow into that version of themselves. Having facilitated this program for over a decade, and through my own manifestation work, I have seen that, in many cases, the manifestation begins long before the evidence arrives. The expansion before the arrival One of the most common experiences I see is expansion. Someone joins the Mind & Magic of Manifesting hoping to attract a specific outcome. Then, somewhere along the journey, they realise the outcome itself was too small. What they truly desire is bigger. More aligned. More authentic. The goal changes because they change. What once felt impossible begins to feel attainable. What once felt ambitious begins to feel normal. Their capacity expands. This is manifestation in action. Discomfort is often a sign of growth Another misconception is that manifestation should feel exciting, easy, and uplifting all the time. In reality, growth is often uncomfortable. Why? Because the beliefs, habits, and fears that have shaped our lives do not disappear quietly. Because we build the story of our identity from them. When we begin questioning long held assumptions about our worth, our potential, our relationships, or what we are capable of creating, friction naturally arises. We are stepping beyond the familiar. That discomfort is not necessarily a sign that something is wrong. Quite often, it is evidence that something is changing. We consistently see this pattern in nature. The caterpillar does not become a butterfly without completely reorganising itself. The atmosphere cannot change without a storm first. The seed’s hard shell must crack for the root to emerge. Humans are no different. The Anima Mundi loves a rhyme Ancient traditions spoke of the Anima Mundi, the World Soul, a living intelligence woven through all things. Whether we call it Spirit, God, Source, Nature, Consciousness, or simply Life itself, many mystical traditions share a common understanding that the world is not inert. It is participatory. There is a conversation taking place between our inner world and the greater field around us. One of my favourite ways to describe manifestation is that the Anima Mundi loves a rhyme. When we carry old stories of unworthiness, limitation, scarcity, or fear, life often echoes those assumptions back to us. We unconsciously seek evidence that confirms what we already believe. As we begin releasing those stories, something shifts. Our frequency changes. Our expectations change. Our willingness changes. Our capacity to receive changes. And life begins to rhyme with that new state of being. Many of the ancient mystery traditions taught that the outer world reflects the inner world. The Hermetic axiom, “As within, so without,” suggests that what unfolds in our lives is often preceded by a shift in consciousness. Before circumstances change, perception shifts. Before opportunities arrive, possibility expands. Before we receive something new, we often become someone new. This is why manifestation is not simply about getting what we want. It is about becoming energetically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually aligned with what we seek. It is then that a new opportunity appears; a chance meeting occurs; a long hidden pathway reveals itself; a teacher, book, conversation, or invitation arrives at precisely the right moment. The inner world changes first. The outer world follows. From a magical perspective, these moments are not random events. They are correspondences. Reflections. Rhymes between the inner and outer worlds. The manifestation is not simply arriving to us. The manifestation is responding to who we are becoming, and the world can only rhyme with the song we are actually singing, not the one we merely wish to hear. The wisdom of keeping silent One of the oldest pieces of magical advice is surprisingly simple: keep silent. In a culture that encourages us to announce every goal, post every milestone, and broadcast every intention, this can seem strange. Yet many magical traditions teach that there is a period during manifestation when the energy is still forming. Like a seed beneath the soil, it is alive but not yet visible. When we share too widely and too soon, we can unintentionally dissipate energy. We invite doubt, projection, opinion, and scrutiny into something that is still taking shape. Many share their rituals and spells on social media. This is a red flag for me; it signals performative magic rather than a true understanding of manifestation magic. There is a sacredness in tending something privately until it develops enough strength to emerge into the world on its own. Nature does not announce the sprouting seed. Magic requires participation One of the biggest misconceptions about manifestation is that it is passive. Set an intention. Light a candle. Create a vision board. Say an affirmation. Then wait. Yet genuine magical traditions have never taught passivity. They teach participation. Magic is not about convincing the universe to deliver something to our doorstep while we remain unchanged. It is about entering into a conscious relationship with creation itself. Every intention asks something of us. A new relationship may require greater self worth, clearer boundaries, or deeper vulnerability. A thriving business may require courage, visibility, consistency, and the willingness to be seen. A healthier body may require different habits and choices. A more meaningful life may require difficult conversations and bold decisions. This is why manifestation work is ultimately a path of personal responsibility. We begin recognising that our beliefs, choices, actions, expectations, and responses all contribute to the reality we experience. We stop waiting for life to happen to us and begin participating in its creation. In this sense, magic is not an escape from reality, but a deeper engagement with it. The spell, ritual, prayer, intention, or visualisation is only the beginning. The real magic unfolds in the choices we make afterwards. Every aligned action becomes a vote for the future we are creating. Detached anticipation Perhaps the greatest manifestation skill is learning to hold certainty in the absence of evidence, a certainty that movement is occurring. This requires a delicate balance that I call “detached anticipation.” There is desire, but not grasping. Hope, but not desperation. Expectation, but not force. The ancient Hermetic teachings described the Law of Rhythm, the understanding that everything unfolds in cycles, seasons, tides, and timing. We do not dig up a seed each day to check whether it is growing. We trust the process unfolding beneath the surface. Manifestation asks the same of us. Can we remain available to possibility before proof arrives? Can we continue tending our inner world when the outer world has not yet caught up? Can we trust that the rhythm of life may be preparing conditions we cannot yet see? Often, the most magical thing we can do is remain steady while reality reorganises itself around a new frequency. The evidence arrives. The practice is learning to hold the vibration before it does. The magic has already begun Perhaps this is why the first sign a manifestation is working is rarely the thing itself. It is the new thought. The expanded possibility. The released fear. The unexpected synchronicity. The courageous conversation. The growing certainty. The quiet decision to stop living as the person you have been and to start becoming the person your future is calling you to be. The first manifestation is not the thing itself. The first manifestation is the version of you who can hold it. If you are interested in learning more about the Hermetic principles mentioned in this article, you can find a lovely, accessible, and practical audio lesson in the Spirited Living store. And if joining a magically minded community calls to you, Spirited Living is here for you. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Danielle Van de Velde Danielle Van de Velde, Meditation Teacher, Reiki Master, Psychic Medium, and Author Dani Van de Velde is a meditation teacher, Reiki Master, psychic medium, and author of Spirited. She is the founder of the Spirited Living and Spirited Business communities, supporting spiritually aligned growth and conscious leadership. Dani is a broadcaster on News for the Soul Radio and host of The Modern Crone podcast, exploring modern spirituality and embodied wisdom. Her work bridges intuition and everyday life, offering grounded, accessible pathways to self-trust and inner clarity. She is known for a warm, practical approach that honours both the mystical and the real.

Written by Sandro Endler, Business Finance Specialist Sandro Endler is an experienced finance professional with over 30 years of expertise in business finance and strategy. He is the author of FACE IT! Mastering Business Finance and holds advanced degrees in finance and economics from renowned universities. Many business owners spend years building their companies, but very little time preparing for the day they will eventually leave them. That day may come through a sale, succession, family transition, management buyout, partnership change, or an unexpected event. The question is not whether the owner will exit. The question is whether the business will be ready when that moment arrives. Exit readiness is not only about selling a business. It is about building a company that is valuable, transferable, and less dependent on the owner. According to the 2023 National State of Owner Readiness Report, 75% of business owners would like to exit their business within the next 10 years. That means exit readiness is not a distant topic. It is a strategic priority for today. 1. Exit planning begins before the exit Many owners believe exit planning starts when they are ready to sell. In reality, that is often too late. A strong exit requires preparation years before a transaction. Financial statements must be reliable. Operations must be documented. The management team must be capable. Customers, employees, contracts, and systems must be transferable. A business that is not prepared may still attract interest, but buyers will quickly identify weaknesses during due diligence. Those weaknesses can reduce value, create delays, increase seller financing, or cause the deal to fail. Exit readiness gives the owner time to correct problems before the market exposes them. 2. Profitability is important, but it is not enough A profitable company is not automatically a transferable company. Many businesses generate income because the owner is heavily involved in daily operations, customer relationships, pricing, sales, problem solving, and decision making. That may work while the owner is active, but it creates risk for a buyer. Buyers do not only evaluate past income. They evaluate the probability that the business will continue to generate cash flow after the owner leaves. This is why owner dependence can reduce value. If the business cannot operate without the owner, the buyer is not only buying a company. The buyer is buying risk. 3. Valuation is the starting point Business owners often have an idea of what their company is worth. Sometimes, that number is based on industry rules of thumb, conversations with peers, emotional attachment, or the amount the owner needs for retirement. But value is not based on what the owner wants. Value is based on risk, cash flow, market conditions, and transferability. A valuation helps the owner understand where the business stands today. More importantly, it identifies what is driving or reducing value. A valuation can reveal issues such as customer concentration, weak margins, inconsistent financial records, lack of management depth, low recurring revenue, or excessive dependence on the owner. For this reason, valuation should not be seen only as a transaction tool. It should be used as a strategic planning tool. The path to a better exit starts with understanding the current value of the business. 4. Exit readiness requires a value gap analysis Once the owner understands the value of the business, the next question is simple, "Is it enough?" Many business owners need the proceeds from the business to support their lifestyle after exit. If the current value of the company is lower than what the owner needs, there is a value gap. That gap cannot be solved at the closing table. It must be addressed through planning, value enhancement, financial strategy, and time. A value gap analysis connects three important questions, What is the business worth today? What does the owner need financially after exit? What must improve to close the gap? Without this clarity, an owner may build the business for years and still discover too late that the company cannot support the desired transition. 5. The business must be ready for the buyer’s perspective Owners often view their business from the inside. Buyers view it from the outside. The owner may see history, effort, relationships, and potential. The buyer sees risk, cash flow, documentation, leadership, systems, and return on investment. This difference matters. A business is more attractive when it can prove that value is transferable. That proof may include clean financial statements, recurring revenue, strong margins, documented processes, diversified customers, capable management, and reduced legal or operational risk. Exit readiness is about preparing the business to stand up to outside scrutiny. 6. Exit readiness is good business strategy The benefit of exit readiness is not limited to selling the company. A business that is exit ready is usually better managed. It has stronger controls, better information, less owner dependence, clearer strategy, and more disciplined financial performance. Even if the owner decides not to sell, the business becomes healthier and more valuable. Exit readiness creates options. The owner may sell, transition internally, bring in partners, reduce involvement, or keep the business while building wealth outside the company. The purpose is not to force an exit. The purpose is to create freedom of choice. Final thought A successful exit is rarely created when the buyer appears. It is built through years of preparation, discipline, valuation, and strategic decisions. Business owners should not wait until they are ready to leave to begin preparing the company. The best time to build an exit ready business is while there is still time to increase value, reduce risk, and create options. Exit readiness is not the end of the business journey. It is the strategy that protects everything the owner has built. Follow me on LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Sandro Endler Sandro Endler, Business Finance Specialist Sandro Endler is a Certified Valuation Analyst (CVA®) and Senior Executive Contributor for Brainz Magazine. He specializes in business valuation, capital readiness, and financial strategy, helping owners translate entrepreneurial ambition into institutional confidence.

Lorie Parmalee, MS, MT-BC, LCAT, is a Music Therapist working in the Capital District of New York State, United States. Lorie ran into the transformative power of music as a child in both playing to cope in isolation and playing flute for her grandfather in the nursing home (hearing a shout down the hall from her grandfather's room, "Whoever is playing, keep playing! It's the calmest she's been all day!"). Lorie grew to want to bring that healing power to others with as many of the arts as possible, supporting both the Music Therapy community in helping found the State Association, as well as her own nonprofit "Life Music Lessons and Therapy Inc." Lorie Parmalee, Music Therapist, Business Owner & Founding Member What first showed you that music could be a tool for healing, not just performance? I had several opportunities when I was a child to see this, but one of the ones that stands out the most was when I was around 10 years old, visiting my Grandfather while he was in a nursing home near Lansing, Michigan. I played flute for school, and had brought it to the nursing home to play for my Grandfather, who had been in the nursing home after suffering a stroke that left him paralyzed on the left side of his body and nonverbal. You could still hear his laugh, though, and though it was not much, I still wanted to share something with my Grandfather. I was playing my flute for him in his room for several minutes when I stopped briefly for a moment. From down the hall, a nurse or staff member shouted, “Whoever is playing that flute, don’t stop playing! This is the calmest she [another resident] has been all day!” I was apparently unknowingly providing a calming effect to a resident I did not even know, up to several rooms down. As far as I could tell, my Grandfather enjoyed the music too. What misconceptions about music therapy do you find yourself correcting most often? The question my colleagues and I get asked all the time is “What is music therapy?” For that, we usually quote the American Music Therapy Association’s standard definition, which is also posted on their website. In short, it includes a certified professional who uses music to work on individualized client goals and objectives. In layman’s terms, we use music adapted to each person’s needs to promote health. The next biggest misconception I run into is that music therapists are just musicians. “It’s the music lady,” or “it’s music time,” is not inaccurate, but I have also been around coworkers and even supervisors who did not differentiate what we do from entertainment. “Can you just come in and play some guitar?” “No, I do not need your session notes. Why are you bothering to teach them addition anyway?” It has certainly been a learning curve for me to realize just how much we as music therapists really need to advocate and educate our profession to other professionals. How do you balance the clinical side of music therapy with the emotional and creative side of the work? Both are essential for the work that we do. Without one or the other, we are either therapists only or musicians only. The core identity of a “music therapist” uses both, but which focus is more important is currently still a large debate in our field. The phrases used are “music as therapy” and “music in therapy”, the first of these focuses on music itself as the healing factor, whereas the second perspective focuses on therapy (the client-therapist relationship) as the healing factor while using music. The debate is ongoing. In our training specifically, we are trained as clinicians, trained observers, followers of the scientific method, and to have a strong focus on evidence-based therapy. That is seen as the best way forward to give both legitimacy to our field and to show its effectiveness in comparison to more established professions like psychiatry or psychology. At the same time, evidence shows we are most effective when we use “client-preferred” music, which, alongside client-centered treatment, requires frequent creative thinking to utilize client-preferred songs in standard interventions or techniques. Honestly, the creativity to make interventions fun, personalized, and effective is my favorite part of the job. Why do you think alternative therapies like music therapy are becoming more important in today’s culture? I think people are growing more aware since communication technologies like social media and the internet have made stories of alternative healing modalities more accessible. At the same time, alternative therapies have been growing as professions themselves and are showing increased evidence of their effectiveness. For music therapy in the United States, this occurred largely after World War II, as it was shown to be effective in treating veterans coming home with PTSD. Music therapy is showing significant evidence-based research now, but Art therapy and the other creative arts are following right behind it. As the fields grow together, public awareness increases as well. However, I have not yet answered your question. Why are these therapies increasing in importance? The arts have held a strong importance to human cultures across the world for thousands of years. In my opinion, not only does it provide a return to our roots in an increasingly chaotic world, but at least in the context of the United States, it also provides a form of societal remembrance that, despite the pharmaceutical industry’s push for standardized drugs for all, other forms of health care exist and potentially can be just as effective. What does music offer people emotionally that traditional wellness approaches sometimes miss? Motivation. Exercise can be difficult, but add a song with a strong beat, and now you have a structure to support your movements as well as your emotional resilience by adding some joy to your ongoing effort. Also, emotional regulation through communication. In my training and experience, most aggressive behaviors occurred when communication (verbal, signing, etc.) failed. Maybe you are nonverbal, dealing with a developmental disability, but the heavy metal music the therapist just put on says the words for you and helps you get out the energy in a productive way, so play those drums! These are just a couple of the ways that “music speaks when words fail,” to quote Hans Christian Andersen, as many of my colleagues do. Pain regulation (if I can count it here through its emotional, subjective aspect) is another. Sometimes pain medications are unavailable to certain patients due to drug allergies or other drug interactions, and yet music has been shown to be just as effective in regulating pain (see burn victim research and music therapy). In short, music specifically can fill the gap of motivation, communication, emotional validation, and emotional coping and regulation that traditional approaches can fail to reach. What are some of the most powerful changes you’ve witnessed through music therapy sessions? I have been blessed to experience some amazing moments myself working in the field, far more than I can share briefly here, but I’ll try. First, as a therapist, I had a client with Lewy Body Dementia. She had been a music teacher herself and loved to sing. She became nonverbal, but during our sessions, she would sing along again as if nothing had changed. For a few brief moments, she would engage in casual conversation again. Those moments were miracles of returned cognitive capacity that could be shared with her caregiver and family, they had their mother and friend again, even if just for a brief amount of time. She showed me that what seems impossible through traditional treatment is possible with music. Secondly, I have a client who is legally blind and suffering from Multiple Sclerosis, especially in her hands. We use playing piano to help work on her mobility, range of motion, and to reduce stiffness and/or pain. She plays by ear, hearing what I play or what we listen to together from recordings. She has since played and written her own pieces, including an arrangement performed at her Temple service in her community. How do you create a sense of meaningful human connection through music, especially in group settings? To start, shared musical preferences and experiences help to build a sense of camaraderie and validation. Our first and last session song typically puts the client’s name as lyrics in a song, usually to build self-esteem and confidence, build rapport, increase social skills, etc. However, it also has the effect of saying “I see you, you are important!” It is a source of unconditional acceptance that a client may not find anywhere else. Then there is improvisation (creating something on the spot) in either singing, instrument playing, or dance, where each client can add their own self-expression to the group and build off of each other in a place of acceptance and support. In some of those songs, you can palpably feel the emotions of the group blending with the music that can almost be described as spiritual, and we are directing that work to the best of our ability to promote healing. We can create tribute songs and remembrance for those who have been lost, provide acceptance where there was rejection, train focus in relaxation techniques instead of self-judgment and daily stress. We use music and connection to relate, discuss, and support these issues in therapy. You often describe music as communication. What does that idea personally mean to you? As referenced above, starting from promoting emotional regulation to social connection without even needing direct words to do so, music therapy can also directly treat issues with communication. This includes working with clients who are nonverbal, have a limited vocabulary, have issues with pronunciation, or those dealing with a loss of skills due to dementia, or those who may be on the autistic spectrum and need help understanding social cues (like body language). Specifically in African music, there exists a concept of “call and response,” which we utilize to help teach language skills, such as “talking” back and forth with music. Singing lyrics can help smooth out articulation or pronunciation and teach accurate mouth formations of speech. Song-writing interventions leave blanks with well-known lyrics that can help prompt single-word responses in order to complete a loved song. Lastly, as I showed with my own direct experience, singing lyrics with patients who have dementia can help form new neurological pathways for memory, both for everyday speech, and that can connect to long-term memory at the same time. These are just some of the ways music therapy can help! If someone has never experienced music therapy before, what would you want them to understand after reading this interview? To quote one of my close colleagues and President of the New York State Association of Music Therapy, Kim Best (and this also happens to be the name of her business), “Music Can Help!” Creative and alternative health therapies are worth looking into, both for their potential to work alongside traditional medicine and for their ability to help in ways where traditional medicine fails. They help us connect back to our roots, our passions, our culture, and our traditional healing beliefs in a world that is increasingly materialistic and profit-motivated. This is the way back, and forward, to give the best out of life to the people that we serve. Check out a music therapist, an art therapist, a drama therapist, or an equestrian therapy program near you, and see if it can help alongside traditional medicine! I am not saying to discard modern medicine in any way, but work alongside your current care providers while exploring and being open-minded to the opportunities that the alternative health therapies can provide. Follow the research, give them a try, and see for yourself how they can improve our lives. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Lorie Parmalee

Written by Genna Barbara Zimmel, Founder of Torus Solutions Genna Barbara Zimmel is an AI implementation strategist, Technical PM, and founder of Torus Solutions. It is a company building intelligent AI systems, CRM automation, and conversational AI products. She is also the creator of Sibyl, an AI companion designed to enhance human self-understanding and relationships. As organizations race to embrace artificial intelligence, the biggest risk is no longer falling behind on technology but failing to implement it with clarity, purpose, and strategy. The businesses that thrive in the years ahead will not be the ones with access to the most powerful AI models, they will be the ones that build the most effective systems around them. The implementation gap Over the course of my career, I have worked across CRM implementation, technical project management, business operations, sales infrastructure, and growth systems. I've seen organizations successfully adopt new technology, but far more often, I've watched implementation become expensive, slow, and ultimately ineffective. What I am seeing happen with AI is different from every previous technology shift I've worked through. Not because the technology itself is more impressive, although it is, but because the gap between organizations that will implement AI well and those that will waste significant time and money on it is widening faster than ever before. I call this The Implementation Gap. It isn't a technical gap. It's a design gap, a clarity gap, and a strategic gap. Too many organizations are rushing to deploy AI before they have defined what they are actually trying to build. Over the past year, I have deliberately immersed myself in this space, combining formal study in Cloud Computing and Python for AI with hands-on work building production systems using OpenAI, Claude, Grok, and Perplexity. That experience has reinforced one conclusion. The organizations that succeed won't necessarily have access to better AI models. They'll build better systems around them. Foundation models are already becoming a commodity One of the biggest misconceptions in AI today is that competitive advantage comes from choosing the "best" model. Today, that conversation revolves around GPT, Claude, Gemini, Llama, Grok, and whatever comes next. Within a relatively short period, that decision will matter far less than many organizations think. Foundation models are rapidly becoming commodities. The competitive advantage is shifting toward everything built around them. Instead of asking, "Which model should we use?", organizations should be asking questions like these: How should our AI behave? What should it know? How should it remember information? How should it integrate with our existing business systems? How do we ensure it represents our organization consistently? These aren't technical questions. They're strategic ones. The organizations that answer them well will create lasting competitive advantages. Those who mistake purchasing AI software for implementing an AI strategy will continue widening The Implementation Gap. Why domain expertise is becoming more valuable, not less One of the most common conversations surrounding AI is whether it will replace people. I believe that question misses the point. After spending the past year building AI systems, the biggest limitation I continue to encounter isn't the model. It's the quality of the knowledge being given to it. Anyone can access a large language model. Anyone can write prompts. What cannot be manufactured overnight is years of domain expertise. The sales professional who understands which customer behaviours actually predict a successful deal possesses knowledge that an AI cannot invent. The operations manager who understands how work truly flows through an organization knows which processes should and should not be automated. Those people aren't becoming obsolete. They're becoming the people who teach AI what matters. The future belongs to professionals who combine deep industry knowledge with an understanding of how AI systems consume, organize, and apply information. The opportunity isn't to compete against AI. It's to become the expert that AI depends on. The design principle that most AI implementations get wrong Most AI implementations today are optimized for one of two outcomes, efficiency or engagement. Efficiency-focused systems answer questions faster and reduce manual work. Engagement-focused systems maximize interaction and time spent using the product. Both have value. Neither is enough. The principle, I believe, that will define the next generation of AI implementation is coherence. Coherence means an AI behaves consistently across every interaction. It remembers the appropriate context. It communicates in the organization's voice, understands the limits of its own knowledge, and integrates naturally with existing workflows rather than operating as an isolated tool. Most importantly, it behaves in ways users can trust. Building coherent AI systems isn't primarily an engineering challenge. It's a design challenge. It requires thoughtful decisions about personality, memory, context, governance, and business processes long before a prompt is ever written. The organizations that solve this won't simply automate tasks. They'll scale their knowledge, their culture, and their expertise without losing the identity that made them successful in the first place. AI will amplify human expertise if we build it correctly There is understandable uncertainty surrounding AI. Many people worry about losing their jobs. I see a different opportunity. Organizations already possess decades of institutional knowledge sitting inside experienced employees, CRM systems, documentation, customer relationships, and operational processes. AI gives us an unprecedented opportunity to organize, preserve, and amplify that knowledge. When implemented thoughtfully, AI doesn't diminish human expertise. It makes it more accessible. It allows organizations to make better decisions, onboard employees faster, retain knowledge that would otherwise leave with staff turnover, and free people to focus on work that requires creativity, judgment, and human connection. The implementation gap isn't closing. It's widening. The organizations that recognize AI as an implementation challenge, not simply a technology purchase, will be the ones that define the next generation of intelligent businesses. Learn more at Torus Solutions and Sibyl. Follow me on LinkedIn and visit my website for more info! Read more from Genna Barbara Zimmel Genna Barbara Zimmel, Founder of Torus Solutions Genna Zimmel is the founder of Torus Solutions and creator of Sibyl, an AI companion built on the principle of Support Over Dependency. She designs and implements conversational AI systems, CRM automation, and multi-agent workflows for organizations navigating the next generation of AI adoption. Genna builds in public, documents the real work behind intelligent systems, and is currently completing formal training in Cloud Computing and Python for AI.