Written by: Sarah Tricker Alchemy, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. Authentic self is a buzz term that has been floating around for a while now. What does it actually mean when people ask if you are your authentic self? Are we not ourselves all the time? Does this not, therefore, make us authentic? I always thought I was my authentic self. However, the older I got, the more I realized that perhaps I was showing different versions of myself in different situations within my life. It is true that as a woman, there are many roles that I have within my life. I began to realize that these roles were like masks that I wore. Wow, did this get draining? I would have to remember to switch the masks dependent on the space and people I was with. Maybe you can relate to this? Sometimes, when tired and too much to do accidentally, I might put the wrong mask in the wrong situation! When I was young, there were not too many ways that my masks got mixed up. I was a daughter, student, worker, girlfriend, sister; all of these roles played nicely together, easily switching with no real conflicts. Oh boy, did the trouble begin as I hit my late 30’s? I had so many roles in my life! At this particular time, I was a mother of two, a wife, still a daughter, a high school social studies teacher, and a tarot reader, to name but a few. This is where the contending loyalties really began to show how I was not my authentic self. It really began when I was gaining my education degree and joined the Alberta Teaching Association. There was an immense amount of pressure placed on the responsibility of being a teacher, the higher standard we are held too, rightly so too. I also lived in a community where, shall we say, the esoteric ways of thinking were classed as ‘woo-woo.’ I want to make it known how hard I had worked to get my education degree whilst being a mother of two young children. Now I have a job where my core beliefs are being called into question! This was an internal struggle that I was having! The gift has been in the familial side of the family for five generations, perhaps longer. I now found myself in a situation where I had to hide my core beliefs. I loved being a teacher, and you must understand teaching is not about pushing your core beliefs. It’s about teaching curriculum. Yet how do I teach from the heart when I am hiding a whole side of myself? How do you know when you are not your authentic self? There are parts of you that are hidden from others! I saw it so clearly at this point in my life. I took dramatic leaps of faith to be my authentic self fully. I left my secure teaching job to become an entrepreneur starting my own business. Let me be clear here. I am not saying that you do not adjust how you ACT in different situations. When I am with children, I don’t swear like a sailor as I do when I am with my friends. Authenticity is about who you are at your core and being that person everywhere you go! Four Steps to Becoming Your Authentic Self Step 1: Take a look at your life and ask the question, "Are you hiding parts of yourself from others?" Step 2: Begin the change slowly. Made a new friend or started a new job? Start the relationships being your true self from the get-go! Step 3: Gain confidence. Begin to remove situations within your life where you can’t be your authentic self! Step 4: Open up to friends and family. Maybe the hardest part of the journey! Those who love you will accept you as you are and those who don’t leave room for new people to enter your life! Personally, my life is so much more than I could have ever imagined now I am my authentic self. When I left teaching and started my business, I looked back at my coming out as the person I always was. I don’t have to put on and remove different masks depending on where I am. I am me wherever I go! Are you ready to join me? Follow Sarah on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, and visit her website for more info! Sarah Tricker Alchemy, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Sarah Tricker Alchemy is a change-maker and has the ability to see what lies in the unseen and unexplained. After realizing her dream to become an educator, Sarah soon understood she herself was not fulfilling her life purpose. In 2016 she began the journey of entrepreneurship and had been forging her way to true authenticity. Sarah is a Public Speaker & Spiritual Empowerment Coach helping women who are in transition within their life. With her gift as a healer, she facilitates women in finding their authentic selves as well as their life purpose. Every moment is a miracle, and there is always opportunity even when you cannot see it.

Written by: Joanne Angel Barry Colon, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. As we say goodbye to April, a month of spiritual healing, this energy was heavy for some. The letters in April add up to the number eleven when referring to numerology, which means Mastering and healing Partnerships. Let’s welcome May in. For me, May reminds me of the childhood game “Mother May I.” May is the fifth month, and in numerology, the number five means change, freedom, courage, adventure, exploring, and unpredictability. When I think of “Mother May I,” I believe the Universe is giving all of us permission to take one quantum leap into the unknown, change lanes, be adventurous, spread our wings and be free. During May, there is so much energy helping us along the way. To start with, we just had the amazing Super Moon in Scorpio. For those who have a strong 8th house, Scorpio placement will feel this transition more than those who do not. However, everyone will feel this energy one way or another. Scorpio is known for death, endings, and births. In addition to the Super Moon, Pluto went retrograde, the planet of transformation and rebirth, also helps us get rid of what is decaying in our lives. With the start of May, and these two energies influencing most of us, we may feel overwhelmed, tired, anxious, and maybe at times feeling lost. Know as you move through May, you’re being supported. Below are several dates that carry High-Frequency Energy and Vibration of change, freedom, courage, adventure, and unpredictability: May 2021 – 5 5 The theme for May, including the Universal Year Energy of 2021 (5), carries what’s known as a Power Number “55.” Anytime a number repeats itself, the energy of that number is stronger, and the message becomes louder, almost as though the Universe is yelling it to get your attention. May 1, 2021 – 5+1+2+0+2+1= 11 Mastery Partnerships A day to heal partnerships on a high level, whether that partnership is with self, parent, sibling, spouse, friend, child, or co-worker. May 5, 2021, 555 555 is an Angel Number, and the Angels remind us that change is coming and freedom is near. As you change, freedom follows, and freedom helps you heal. May 11, 2021 = New Moon in Taurus On this date, we’re not only feeling the energy from the New Moon but it’s also blended with a Master Number 11. Taurus is our Zodiac sign of intuition, nurturing, and also known to be very slow and grounded. The New Moon energy is about creating something new. Combine this with Master Number 11. This day may bring magic in the air to help activate our intuition while nurturing our partnerships. May 14, 2021, May 23, 2021, 555 Angel Numbers May 22, 2021, Saturn Goes Retrograde in Aquarius In Numerology, 11, 22, and 33 are known as Master Numbers and are the only numbers that do not get reduced to a single digit because the numbers 1, 2, and 3 create a Triangle of Enlightenment. On the 22nd, you may be known as the Spiritual Master Teacher that helps someone build a new foundation in partnerships, contracts, and relationships, or perhaps a Spiritual Master Teacher may help you. Saturn is the planet of maturity, responsibility, and discipline. May 26, 2021 – Super Moon in Sagittarius This Super Moon is the second one of the season. Just as we felt the Super Moon in Scorpio, most of us will feel this Super Moon’s energy as well, especially those who have Sun, Moon, and or Rising Signs in Sagittarius or opposition sign Gemini. May 29, 2021 – Mercury Goes Retrograde in Gemini As mentioned earlier, we’re now in Retrograde Season. This is the second retrograde that we experienced in an Air Sign, and we will have one more in Libra, making this an unusual series of events. Mercury goes retrograde on the 29th. This date carries the energy of healing communication with our partnerships on a Mastery level. Mercury is the planet of communication, and Gemini is the Zodiac sign of communication. Many Astrologers are reporting that this retrograde may help heal communication on many levels personally, professionally, and politically. As we begin Retrograde Season, it’s important to remember this is a time to reflect, rewind, recalibrate and renew. As you experience this retrograde, take time to reflect and release what no longer serves you and be open to making space for all the new things on their way. Note that retrogrades help us discover who we are on a deeper soul level and transform into the best version of ourselves. To take advantage of this amazing energy of what I call “Mother May I,” I recommend that you incorporate the following practice into a daily routine: Visual Meditation – Meditate for 10 minutes a day, visualizing how you would like your life to unfold, then move on your day Drink plenty of water – As we experience the New Moon and Super Moon, you may find your body feeling a little dehydrated, so drink up. I also recommend coconut water for an extra boost. HIIT Workout – 30 to 60 minutes a day, a great way to get your cardio exercise and weight training all packed in one. Stretch/Yoga - When you find yourself sitting for more than 60 minutes or longer, taking a 5-minute break to stretch or do a yoga pose may help recharge your brain and loosen your hips, back, shoulders and neck. A little bit goes a long way. Chakra Balance Energy Healing – Think of a rainbow that starts at your tail bone and travels up to the top of your head then visualize this rainbow flowing within your body, as this energy moves within you, this energy begins to move outside of you, this energy is known as Life Force. When your Chakras are balanced, so is your Life. What Does The New Moon in Taurus Have Instore For You? Aries: The New Moon offers a renewal around your career and also heightens your intuition. Pay attention to music, as it may help bring more clarity to unanswered questions. Taurus: This New Moon shines a light on new beginnings, first impressions, especially associated with relationships, personally and professionally. Update your resume and get out there and socialize. Gemini: This New Moon will help you let go of things, people, and places that you have outgrown. This is a perfect time to recalibrate how you do business. You may need to get away to see things differently and come back with fresh eyes. The old way of doing business is done. Cancer: This New Moon brings new people, places, and opportunities. A great time to join new groups, update your social media pages and website. This is a time to stand out. Be open to sudden events and surprises. Leo: This New Moon will help you get a new job or promotion. You will be recognized and rewarded. As you take on your new position, be sure to set boundaries. You will be in the public eye. It’s time for fame. Virgo: This New Moon may inspire you to go back to school or travel to enhance higher education. Libra: This New Moon helps you tie up loose ends, finish projects, and birth something new. A transformation is on its way. The relationships you create during this time will have a strong bond and deeper connection. Scorpio: This New Moon will help shine a light on relationship matters such as contracts, marriage, and business. Sagittarius: This New Moon encourages you to reorganize your home and or office so you can make room to exercise. You’re inspired to change your eating plan with the help of a Nutrition Coach. You may even consider learning more about exercise and nutrition. Capricorn: This New Moon may help you be more playful, tap into your creative juices, and even change your appearance. You may also have a desire to express yourself more and share your wisdom. Aquarius: This New Moon may help you create a new foundation. A new project may show up or business partner. Personal relationships may shift to another level. You may communicate more with your children and parent (particularly your mother). Pisces: This New Moon will activate your ability to communicate, think, and talk. Your wisdom will shine just as bright as the moon. Take this opportunity to share all you do. Big projects can launch under the influence of the New Moon. I am here to help you release issues from your tissues as you release emotional weight and fall in love with yourself while I witness your transformation of being the best version of you. To redeem a complimentary Self – Growth Discovery Session email. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram and visit my website for more info! Read more from Joanne! Joanne Angel Barry Colon, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Joanne Angel Barry Colon has 30+ years in the health, fitness, and wellness industry. She is the Wholistic Fitness owner located in NY Queens, certified holistic personal trainer, intuitive healer, cosmic energy reader, student of Astrology, Master of Numerology, and Creator of Chakra Balance Numerology Cosmic Energy Forecast Deck. She is the Host of Joanne's Healing Within T.V Show and Joanne's Cosmic Energy Radio Show and Author/Self-Publisher. Joanne's mission: To help women (men by referral) release issues from their tissues as they release emotional weight and fall in love with themselves while witnessing their transformation of being the best version of themselves.

Written by: Elizabeth Simmons, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. Time is a key ingredient. “I must practice the art of patience for nature acts never in haste” – Og Mandino. In gardening, there is an average number of growing days allocated to most crops. You plant the seeds, fertilize the soil, water, and tend the beds. While some of the plants may mature close to the time specified, some will take weeks longer. Do you pull those immature crops and toss them out, or do you keep them in the soil and continue to care for them until they’ve reached readiness? Furthermore, if the plant is still thriving and growing (however slowly), do you start to wonder if the plant will mature, or do you expect that proper harvest will occur when the time is right? If you are thriving, growing, and progressing however slowly, what does it matter how long it takes? You can only control what you are doing at this moment, and most often, the results of the efforts put forth will not show until months, if not years later. Everything will happen when it happens, and any attachment to a perceived time period will just be wasted energy. There comes the point where you need to let go of the outcome and trust the process. This means you keep creating, producing, nurturing, experimenting and working because once you are where you want to be, you’ll still need to continue. The course will most likely not change too drastically, only your attitude towards it will. If your wish is for 5,000 subscribers to your blog (just saying), once you reach that number, does that mean that you stop writing? Hell no, it means that you may be writing even more, so what does it matter if you have 50 subscribers or 5,000 subscribers? To reach 5,000 readers, you need to produce the quality of work that’s worthy of them, even when you only have 50. Your energy needs to be put into the work you are constructing, not worrying about why you do not have the results you wish for yet. With almost anything, consistency over time is what will produce the greatest results. Time is a key ingredient; it is part of the mix. Without it, you’ll lose the chance to get better. You often feel the most pain when you try to control the amount of time it takes. You either push yourself too hard and too fast, creating both mental and physical stress, or worse, you stop all together because, according to your perception, it is taking too long. Either way, you experience the pain, not time. Specify the results you want, envision them, see yourself accomplishing them, and then let go. Proceed like it will happen, shift to doing what you need to do, and then slowly, you will move to be who you need to be. This will have you move from wanting to doing to being. Often, we place ourselves apart from nature, when in reality, we are part of it. A tree grows expecting to be a tree, and we are the same. We must grow, and we must see who we are meant to be and know that within ourselves that will happen. We must embrace time as part of our journey, a key component in our growth. Stop wasting time focusing on time. Start accepting that your time is spent fabricating and creating the steps that will allow your future to unfold as you’ve seen it when you’re ready for it. Check out Elizabeth on her website. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn! Read more from Elizabeth! Elizabeth Simmons, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Liz Simmons is a woman of action in the career and life coaching field. A massive injury (full rupture of Achilles tendon) in 2010 made Liz ditch her corporate job of 10 years (Environmental Scientist) and start taking responsibility for her own life. Since then, Liz has inspired hundreds to transform their lives by making changes in their health, career, and mindset. Liz is the owner of Strength & Grace Life Coaching, a business mentor for EforAll (Entrepreneurship for All), an international speaker, a life coach for high schools, host of “The Pivot Posse” interview series, and author of a weekly blog. She has dedicated her life to helping others move from frustrated, apathetic, and insecure to focused, confident and courageous. Her mission is to help millennials with a passion develop the mindset and skills for becoming successful entrepreneurs.

Written by: Judith Viado, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. If the past year has taught us one thing, it’s definitely to prioritize our health beyond everything else. With the various diseases co-existing in the world right now, we might as well keep ourselves away from those that harm our health. One of which is a silent killer that not a lot of us are aware of, and that is food toxicity— more specifically, what causes it. Studies have shown that certain types of cookware present toxins that eventually lead to liver problems, thyroid dysfunction, and osteoarthritis, to name a few. With the amount of importance that society puts upon us to eat healthy, it’s a shame how the same amount of importance doesn’t apply to our cooking method. The leaching of heavy metals from your household cookware is a huge health concern. They tend to enter the food we eat and bioaccumulate their concentration over time. Although toxicity depends upon the amount ingested, exposure to cadmium and lead can cause severe toxic effects even in low amounts. The Dangers of Non-Stick Cookware With the popularity of non-stick cookware comes the need to be extra careful. Teflon and its non-stick properties can make a person sick with the temporary flu if overheated. DuPont, the company that manufactured Teflon, even issued a consumer warning that fumes from overheated Teflon can be lethal to birds. It releases toxic chemicals like PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid), which has been linked to different cancers, to say the least. Even the use of aluminum cookware is discouraged. Despite aluminum being the most abundant metal, it is also a neurotoxic metal. While it may pose certain health concerns, aluminum cookware and containers expose food to leaching even at low concentrations. Mom on a Mission to Educate Overall health is not just dependent on the food we eat or how much we exercise. It is also dependent on how we store and prepare our food, our method of cooking, and what we cook it with. And this is why Nutricraft Cookware is passionate about creating safe cooking products and educating everyone about the dangers lurking on their cookware. If you’re a mother like me and prioritize your family's health, my advice is to take a good look at what your cookware is made of. As a mum, I’m very particular about what my family eats. Ever since my family suffered health problems (attributed to our cookware!), I vowed to make it my mission to change our cookware and change the way we see food. Now I’m on a mission to help educate other mums and families about the importance of the right cookware so that we can get the best out of the food we cook. Of course, when it comes to ingredients, let’s stick with what we know works. Improving your diet is as easy as eating more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. These have long been linked to people with healthier hearts. In addition to that, lessen your consumption of processed meats and sodium to decrease your risk of developing high blood pressure, heart disease, and cancer. (we already know this!) The food we eat loses a huge chunk of its nutrients the moment we start prepping. Research shows that an average home will lose up to 85% of the nutrients from their food due to the process of preparing and cooking the food. Once we start peeling fruits and vegetables, we’re already getting rid of the most nutritious part of the plant! And as we boil or cook these ingredients over 90 degrees, we’re destroying nutrients that we could benefit from! Safe Cookware Means Safe, Nutrient-Rich Food This important task now falls on our cookware. As much as we’re trying to maximize the number of vitamins and minerals that we can get from our food, we need to make sure we’re using materials that are safe for our bodies to ingest and are non-toxic. When we created Nutricraft Cookware, we made sure the nutrients in the food you cook are maintained! We cannot emphasize this enough, and this is why using safe, and toxin-free cookware is so important. Think about it this way: with your cookware being the last thing your food touches before being served, why isn’t it the most important part of your kitchen, or even your meal? Not a lot of people view their cookware with as much importance as they do their food. Since most of us are staying at home, this is the best time to make the switch. Now that we’ve created the Nutricraft brand of cookware, we are hopeful that we can get more families and individuals to cook safely and eat healthy! You can make the healthy switch today. Visit https://nutricraftcookware.com/ for safe, toxin-free cookware and cooking resources! Follow Judith on Facebook, Instagram and visit her website for more information! Read more from Judith! Judith Viado, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Judith is a highly accomplished Oracle NetSuite specialist and global online business entrepreneur. She has a background in Science, worked in Public Health, and recently been accepted as a Health and Nutrition Educator by a Scientific Community in Australia. She has cross-discipline technical expertise in various areas, including Financial Accounting, Taxation, IT project management, E-commerce, Property Wealth Creation, On-site Residential Property Management, NetSuite specialist, and Strata Management. While Judith enjoys her full-time job and managing her global online stores, she and her husband Richard started their own cookware brand with a simple goal of changing peoples’ lives. On the weekends, Judith and her family teach people healthy food preparation methods without using oil, salt, artificial seasoning, and how to prevent contamination. She promotes keeping ingredients in their purest form, enhancing their natural flavors and maximum nutritional value. Judith strongly believes that since this cooking style has dramatically changed her family’s lifestyle, it will have a huge impact on others’ lives. She aims to educate more people to learn to eat well, live well, and free from metal toxicity.

Written by: Agnes Gomori, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. The easing of lockdown is one of the happiest news for many of us in the UK this year, but it created a new type of anxiety for some. We are all in unity about wanting to socialize like it’s 2019 again and being able to enjoy London’s rich cultural life. But opinions are not so much united about going back to the office full time. It took people only a few weeks to realize during the first lockdown how easy it is to create that work-life balance they yearned for. The flexibility of working from home and the extra time spared by not commuting is the holy grail that many people don’t want to give up. Last summer, when we had a slice of normality back as some of the lockdown restrictions were removed, there was a big divide between those who wanted to get back to the office full-time and those who preferred flexible working as a permanent feature. It was quickly and wrongly assumed that it’s the introverted types who prefer the latter. Fast forward to Spring 2021, and returning to the office is once again very relevant. The difference this time is that even those who describe themselves as people-orientated and extroverts are also preferred to keep the flexible working. One of the main reasons people miss the office is so they can socialize with colleagues. This is typically true for people in their 20s and early 30s because they are not settled yet, and they are likely to establish their circle of friends at work. But those who are in their mid-30s and up tend to have a more settled life. They understandably prefer to work from home or at least have a flexible working schedule. Although we call it 9-5, for many, finishing at 5 pm was often a myth and long unpaid overtime was the reality. When we add the commute, which in London was typically between 3–5 hours daily, it’s easy to see why no one feels to rush back to how things were. Employers invested heavily in the well-being of employees in the last few years. Serviced office buildings offering lunchtime yoga, head, and shoulder massages have quickly become the new norm. More and more places allowed staff to take their dogs to work, and later they were joined by other staff pets such as cats, ferrets, or even parrots. The aim was to create a home from home experience, reduce stress levels and boost productivity. The communal spaces were generously spaced with ultra-sleek design, but more often than not, the offices were tiny cramped glass cages or huge and noisy open-space offices with harsh neon lights. This has resulted that staff often preferred to work outside of their designated office, in the airier, communal areas. Teams with great leadership recognized that offering flexible working equaled high performance, and employees continued to excel. Those teams who only had the promise of flexibility ‘sometimes in the future’ felt left out and quietly rebelled. No cute dogs in the office or fancy cappuccino served with shoulder massage was going to replace the most important thing: Trust. The trust that staff can be happier, more productive if they are offered flexible working. When the choice of working from home became a reality for office workers because of the pandemic, something magical happened. Those leaders who had the titles but not the leadership qualities were forced to realize that micromanaging their teams was no longer an option. Because of this newly found trust, their team performed better. However, if managers abused it, staff were no longer afraid to leave because they experienced it first-hand ‘how the other half lives.’ The other half, who’s not afraid to speak up and ask for what is their right: to enjoy a supportive and flexible working environment. An increasing number of clients who initially asked me to help manage their stress levels ended up successfully changing jobs, retraining themselves, or starting a new business. Lockdown has affected many people’s mental health, but the trick is to find that one good thing in a scary situation. The solitude, the lack of seeing family and friends, had to be replaced with something valuable, something worth waking up to. Those who acknowledged that there is no point in fighting the things they can’t change and should focus on what they can change came out winners. We were so used to being busy all the time, but the lockdown restrictions forced us to slow down to a minimum and look within. It was the first time they ever dare to go deep and think through how they want to live their lives for many people. Hiding away from their own thoughts was no longer an option. They realized they are responsible for their own happiness and not others. They also admitted that their previous work-life balance was anything but balanced. People went through major changes in their lives last year, resulting in becoming more spiritual and more at peace with themselves. Some started a family after years of saying that they don’t want children. Some finally got pregnant after the daily long commute, and the office stress was no longer present in their lives. Some fall in love online after several zoom dates without even seeing each other in real life. Some bravely got out of their co-dependent relationship and now embracing the single life. But work relationships, friendships, and family aside, the most precious relationship we had time to focus on is the one with ourselves. We've built new standards for ourselves around things we want in our life and things which are to be banished for good. Challenging situations bring new opportunities. One of them was the continuous creation of a more humane working culture to help to prevent further mass burnout, which, as we know now, can no longer be regarded as a badge of honor. Conclusion: Anxiousness caused by the possibility of going back to full-time city life is causing sleepless nights for many. Employees now rank having more time (such as not having to commute) higher than getting a pay rise. When change is forced upon us, it's human nature to want to resist it. We want to hold on to the familiar. But being inflexible and not being open to change is no longer an option. Replacing office life fully with remote working is not the ultimate solution, but offering flexible working is. Aside from high performance and loyalty, employees will also thank their employers for fewer sick leaves. Because for a company to be successful, trust needs to work both ways. Follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and visit my website for more info! Read more from Agnes! Agnes Gomori, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Agnes Gomori is an Intuitive Life Coach and Healer. As a multi-passionate, creative Empath, Agnes is committed to helping fellow Empaths to find their true calling by applying the healing power of arts and nature, which she combines with energy healing in her therapeutic coaching sessions. Agnes has helped clients from across the globe to unlock their true potential. Her mission is to help extroverted Empaths become the empowered creators they were born to be.

Written by: Monica Pelaez, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. Rene Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. He lived in the 17th century, one of my favorite centuries because the truculence of Europe’s politics is the best content source for reality TV ever. Think of Loui IX, the Sun King. Oliver Cromwell believing in the British Republic. Peter the Great modernizing Russia. And why think only of European figures? Well, do you believe in capitalism and believe communism had it coming as a socio-economical-political ideology? The roots of our constitutional and economic principles are found there in the 17th century, especially in France. The founding fathers were men of their time, and men of their time looked to France for the “world-class” education any smart person aspired to at the time. French and Latin were the languages of knowledge, not English. The founding fathers believed in the separation of powers, for example. This concept comes from Baron de Montesquieu, who studied Rene Descartes. The importance of Descartes is that he believes man can understand the world by thinking. Now you understand why Rene Descartes is so important to me. We have had many, many “influencers” in how our operating system of thinking works. If you believe your way of making decisions is “free,” sorry, but you are wrong. Your education determines the way you think. You can believe you can understand the world by observation, or you can believe you cannot understand the world on your own, and you need to believe what others tell you; Rationalism or Theologism. A free thinker does not exist. To be a free thinker, you have to decide not to think. And at some point, you have to think, and you have to come to some conclusions. People think as much as they breathe. Not possible not to think. All of you anarchists, grow up! This brings me to families. Every family has a narrative of its own, a belief system of its own. Some families follow credos through numerous generations. Some change radically as Monica Pelaez Life & Education Coaching an offspring diverts from the family norm, either influenced by politics or religion or economics. Yet families, as any human collective, create so many unique and interesting phenomena: customs, beliefs, rituals, vocabulary, style. As an education coach, I visit at least 10 different homes on any given week. Oh, so different they are! As human beings, we desperately need to “organize” the world we live in. We need norms, morals, boundaries, processes, procedures, manners, right, and wrong. What can be done and what cannot be done. (My father was a surgeon. He had a very precise way of living, which included dinner at seven o’clock on the dot. I could go anywhere I wanted, stay up as late as I wanted. But I had to be home for a formal, 4-course meal every night at seven o’clock. After dinner, I was free again. Needless to say, I had many “guests” when I was a teenager. Wink!) I am a “student.” I will give de the odd lady in her 80’s attending college pursuing some sort of degree. I have been a student since I can remember. I have pursued degrees in Law, Economics, Accounting, Art, Political Science, Management. As part of my Economics studies, I read “Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith. He rocks! Which took me to the Mercantilism dawn in the 1600s. Mercantile means trade, and trade back then required a lot of faith! Imagine investing in a vessel, a galleon made of timber, in the shape of a half watermelon, with huge sails and cannons popping through crevices to defend itself from pirates! (Oh! Pirates of the Caribbean, here we are. In 2008, during a dig in London, the HMS “Duke of Wellington” remnants were found; the most powerful ship in the world when launched in 1852. One of the interesting discoveries was the system used to identify the ship's different logs and timber pieces to make sure they went in the place they were meant to go once recycled. Mind you; good timber is an expensive commodity. Amazing information technology!) That galleon of commerce, that vessel would leave the port of Naples and travel to Constantinople (today’s Istanbul in Turkey) for months without news. The Mediterranean is and was a busy, dangerous sea. Anything could happen. You could win really, really big or lose big. Mercantile endeavors were a risky system of wealth development but very, very profitable. The main players were Jewish bankers. Why? Well, Jewish bankers learned a lot from anyone. They did not have prejudice when it came to knowledge. And the Persians (modern Iranians) were as smart, wise, Monica Pelaez Life & Education Coaching knowledgeable and methodical as the Greeks and Romans. In the West, we are infused by Greek and Roman thought, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hesiod, Heraclitus, Thucydides, Cicero, Seneca. But the Jews, in addition to the Greeks and Romans, knew the Persians and Arabs were as advanced if not more than the Greeks and the Romans and absorbed everything they could from their thinking. Thinking creates knowledge, technology. The Mercantilists believed there had to be quantitative methods to measure these sea adventures. And accounting was invented—the systematic representation of commercial exchange using numbers. Numbers had always been important. When Rene Descartes, my rational hero, attended a Jesuit Catholic school, the curriculum comprised Mathematics, Philosophy, Astronomy, Theology, Rhetoric. In education, previous to the 20th century, quantitative knowledge from qualitative knowledge was not separate; the two areas of knowledge went hand in hand. For Descartes, philosophical, political discourse was up, close, and personally connected to mathematics. Mathematics was not just the quantitative analysis of the concrete phenomenon. Mathematics was a way of thinking. An organized, procedural, step-by-step process that had been deliberately prescribed and followed towards the desired outcome. The Mercantilists were not philosophers. They did not deem it necessary to consider if exploitation was moral or immoral. Their concern was the ROI, Return on Investment. ROI first appeared in 1914 at the United States Treasury. This term was coined by an electrical engineer called F. Donaldson Brown, who had worked at the Du Pont Corporation. This man was a sales representative of the corporation in the explosives department. He participated in a committee charged with analyzing whether the corporation should diversify into lacquers, Pryalin, plastics, and dies. His work was so admired, he was recommended as Assistant United States Treasurer. In that capacity, he developed a formula to monitor businesses’ performance. Return on Investment is born. Mind you, F. Donaldson Brown did not have Descartes’ education. He had a very different one. By then, the distance between philosophy and mathematics was broad and wide. In the 1800s, as a result of the Reformation of the Church, the emergence of Calvinism and Rationalism, Mathematics was stripped of any philosophical digression, concentrating on the science itself. Only the scientific method prevailed, and any discourse, departure, or analysis of implications was stripped from mathematical thought application. (Currently, there is a Monica Pelaez Life & Education Coaching resurgence, and physicists are also philosophers. Nick Bostrom at the “Future of Humanity Institute” is a good example. ROI is a method of measuring businesses. A family has “assets” that cannot be “valued” in currency. Families have “results,” which cannot be measured by any quantitative method. Allow me an example. A parent of a three-year-old whom I am “home-schooling” to some extent asked to have a more “formal, structured means of measuring his daughter’s progress. I was offered more information. The parent sidestepped to his work to illustrate his point. He mentioned how in his business which was “measured” weekly, they knew if they had met target points. I interjected to say in education we no longer measure, we asses and there is a very good reason for it. Then a friend was mentioned “who went to Northwestern and is very smart” who had recommended, “Playing Preschool.” And as a final point, he said his wife asked for money to do yoga, with which he was perfectly fine as long as the results of those yoga classes could be seen. I smiled profusely. We need to understand that our rationality will not be the magic wand we so much desire. I agree with Descartes in that our mind can understand the world, but the mind, as wonderful as it is, has limits. Life requires soul, requires spiritual strength. Spirituality is not religiousness. It is the belief that we are part of something, and we must respect our place in that something where many other beings exist. We are not the best thing that ever happened. (Yes, this is a very personal, simplified version of what spirituality is. I do not wish to be an “expert” on the subject). We also need to understand the family has nothing to do with success. Family is about love, loyalty, respect, nurture, kindness. It’s about supporting each other. It is about “something” we cannot put into words but that we can recognize when we see it. Do you feel at this point this is all fluff? Good. Because it is fluff and fluff cannot be measured, it is fluff after all. And I have made my point then. So, all of you very smart, successful, accomplished, articulate parents; beware! Everything you worked so hard to learn in college and business school will not serve you to be a good spouse, father, son, sibling. Family is about the heart. No amount of head can understand the pain of a sick loved one. No amount of numbers can explain why a child just cannot read. No amount of evaluations can explain why an autistic child hates the sound of a Monica Pelaez Life & Education Coaching elevator but loves the wishing buzz of a washer. No amount of theory will convince your teenager to speak! At the bottom of all this, we find the need for control. What the parent in my example craves is control. Control of his daughter’s growth, intellectual ability, doing capacity. His assumption is that if he makes the right decisions, his daughter will be smart and successful. His education has taught him evidence is king. Paper, numbers, black and white, will assure safety, health, survival. But oh! The wicked witch of the west has a surprise. Life is gray! Life is uncertain. Life is non-measurable. Life is volatile. Life is like water sipping, dripping through your fingers. What frustration! Flow my dear flow. Quantified outcomes cannot measure family success. Family success is a mystery. In my opinion, it should remain as such. How after many, many years of distance, a hug heals all rifts. How a little white puppy creates such joy and laughter in a family suffering from a serious illness. Yes, the first “mama.” The first step. A baby discovering her foot! A teenager spontaneously asking us for a meal together. Family is not a business, and anything in the realm of Return on Investment has absolutely no place there. Wake up, my dear 21st-century professionals. There is so very much more to life beyond your wildest calculations! Follow me on Facebook , LinkedIn , Instagram and visit my website for more info! Monica Pelaez, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Monica Pelaez is a thinker, writer, coach, and instructor. With a background in international law and business, involved in educational projects across continents, she has built a coaching/tutoring private practice to help the ones who are like her, "outliers." Those who do not fit the mold have a hard time with the system but are smart, curious, and intrepid. She combines the spheres of emotions, behavior, and academics in her practice. She views the individual as a complex being with unique talents, challenges, and needs and works to have them succeed in academics. She writes about any and all topics that interest her, without any claim to expertise, under the liberal principles of freedom of thought.

Written by: Victoria Chardon, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. Recently I was speaking with a client who has a big dream - the kind of vision that makes someone’s eyes shine when they talk about it. She also had many 'reasons' why she just knew she couldn't fulfill it. We explored her dream in detail. As she spoke, her excitement was building. The conversation was crackling with aliveness and electricity. I told her I was getting butterflies hearing her speak. 'Me too!' she cried. I asked her what those butterflies felt like. 'Alive,' came her reply. 'And if you don't go and live this dream, what will happen to those butterflies?' I asked her. 'They'll die. And I will regret it for the rest of my life.' Who wants to be a butterfly killer? The trouble is, our big dreams often feel so overwhelming that we're terrified to go for them. The voice of our Inner Critic is constantly shouting: ‘I can’t give up my financial freedom!’ ‘What if I am making a huge mistake?’ ‘People will judge me if this doesn’t work out!’ ‘It’s safer to stay where I am!’ Sound familiar? Imagine a circle on the floor around you right now, with yourself in the center. This represents your comfort zone. This is the place where you know what you’re doing, and you know what you’re dealing with most of the time. Maybe it’s not always exciting here, but at least it’s safe. Around the perimeter of this circle is a high fence. And guarding the fence, like an eagle-eyed sentry, is your Inner Critic. Beyond the fence is The Great Unknown. In The Great Unknown, there are possibilities. There is growth, potential, adventure, learning. From inside your circle, you don’t know what any of that looks like, but you’re aware that it’s there. Somewhere in The Great Unknown, you know that your butterflies are flying. Sometimes, you manage to climb high enough to peek over the fence. Perhaps you catch a glimpse of possibility; perhaps you even feel the flutter of butterfly wings. When this happens, as with my client, you come alive for a brief time. And then your Inner Critic, on their patrol, reaches the very point in the fence where you’re peering over and forces you back into your comfortable circle with a rebuke and a reminder that it’s easier - and safer - to stay put. So this brings us to the question that everyone asks when I introduce them to this concept: What can I do about my Inner Critic? One of the best strategies to overcome your negative self-talk is awareness and self-distancing. Can you bring awareness to the moment your Inner Critic shows up? Can you pinpoint what triggers those limiting beliefs? Are there themes and patterns in what it says to you? Bringing awareness is the first step because it shows us that these limiting beliefs are not us. When we learn to see our Inner Critic as the highly strung, over-protective parent that it really is, we can then begin to distance ourselves from them. And just as we have an Inner Critic, we also have an Inner Leader - but we rarely hear their voice amidst the din. If you could meet them - the wisest, most compassionate, and truly confident part of you, the part that knows exactly what needs to be done - what would they have to say about reaching for your dreams? There is a myriad of ways of connecting with these parts of you and separating their voices. One powerful way is to visualize them. What do you imagine your Inner Critic to look like? How about your Inner Leader? If you were to ask them what they want for you, what do they both have to say? What is your Inner Critic trying to shield you from? And what does your Inner Leader think about that? Grab a pen and paper and start journaling some of these questions out. You will be surprised at what you discover. There is no off-switch for your Inner Critic and no easy way to pole vault over that fence into freedom. You need to keep bringing awareness and checking in with your Inner Leader. And whilst the Great Unknown is the place where dreams come true, it’s also ok to sometimes stay in your comfort zone. There are moments when we need to feel safe and secure - but that need has nothing to do with your Inner Critic holding you hostage and everything to do with conscious choice. The ideal state of being is one where instead of climbing the fence, you find the gate and pass in and out of the Great Unknown with more ease. Would you rather kill off your butterflies and what they represent, or face your Inner Critic and let the butterflies fly free? The choice is yours. For more information, follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn and visit my website! Read more from Victoria! Victoria Chardon, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Victoria Chardon specializes in fulfillment, confidence-building, and making big dreams become a reality. As well as being a Google leader who manages an international team, she is the co-founder of Rising Star Leadership, a consultancy that creates personalized coaching programs for groups, individuals, and corporations. Victoria helps people to connect with themselves on a deeper level than they usually would, pulling them away from life on the surface' and helping them claim their powerful, unique individuality. She also works with leaders to help them incorporate vulnerability and compassion into their leadership style. She is a vocal advocate on wellbeing and mental health and has taken to the stage on several occasions to share her personal journey and break down the stigma of mental health in the workplace.

Written by: Veerle Beelen, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. Do you ever feel like you miss home so much that you can’t even enjoy your new surroundings anymore? You’re not the only one! It’s actually very common to feel homesick sometimes while transitioning from one place to another one. Whether it’s for temporary travel or whether you move to another place or new country. When you feel homesick, it doesn’t mean you need to jump on the first plane back home, though! It usually has not much to do with the home as a place itself, but it is more a wave of emotions caused by the fact that you need to adjust yourself to a new place. However, the most important question is: what can you do about it? Here are some tips on things you can do when you feel homesick: Let’s get started! Like waves, these feelings will come and go. The good news is: like waves, these feelings of homesickness will come and go! Homesickness is not a disease. It’s a temporary feeling of discomfort. Even though you might sometimes feel like it will stay with you forever, that is not true. It will pass, and you will feel better. Visit a place that feels familiar. When you notice feelings of homesickness, it helps to visit a place in your area that feels familiar to you. For example, a coffee shop that you can visit regularly or some other place makes you feel comfortable. After a while, this can help you feel more attached to this place, which can help to beat homesickness. Homesickness is often caused by feeling detached from wherever you are, and that makes you miss home and the things that were familiar to you in the past. Create a new home away from home. Besides visiting new places regularly to make them feel more familiar to you, you can also start exploring your new surroundings to create more attachment and eventually a home feeling. The more you find out about your new neighborhood, city, or country, the more comfortable you will feel. This also comes with making new connections. Try to connect with some locals or other travelers or expats, who can tell you more about your new place of residence. Perhaps you can form some new friendships with them, which can help you feel more connected. Focus on the present moment. When you have feelings of homesickness, this often shows itself in some form of anxiety, sadness, depression, or stress. People experience it in different ways, but it usually has to do with longing for the past or thinking about the future instead of being connected with yourself in the present moment. When you feel homesick, it’s easy to compare everything in your new surroundings with what you had before, even if your current situation might be better in terms of housing or career or something else. Comparison puts you into a negative spiral and makes you feel even more disconnected from where you are. Tools like meditation, journaling, or exercise can help you connect with yourself and feel more present in your current surroundings. There is nothing to be ashamed of. As I said before, feeling homesick is completely normal and common among people who travel or live abroad. Don’t feel ashamed to talk about this with someone. You might feel that other people who haven’t left home won’t understand you. Talk to someone you can trust and who listens to you. If you don’t feel comfortable sharing these feelings with your friends or family, you can always connect with other travelers or expats who might be going through the same experience. More often than you would perhaps expect, people will show empathy and understanding for what you are going through because they have had similar experiences. You can also hire a coach who can help you get through this transition phase and focus on your mindset. Do the things you love the most. Try to do activities that you enjoy. Whether you do similar hobbies as you used to do at home or try out something new that you have always wanted to try out, it doesn’t matter. In my case, when I moved to Australia, one of the first activities I did was taking surf lessons because it had always been something I wanted to try and felt really excited about. Doing an activity that you enjoy can help you get out of your mind and focus on something more positive. Besides that, it can offer a great opportunity to connect with like-minded people, feel more comfortable and connect with yourself on a deeper level. Be compassionate with yourself. Self-love is always important, but even more in situations like this when you’re transitioning into a new place and might feel homesick sometimes. Feel compassionate for what you are going through, and don’t criticize yourself for feeling this way. The more empathy you have for yourself, the easier it will be to deal with negative thoughts. When you feel like you got your own back and feel happy in your own company, you can start enjoying yourself more and shift your mindset towards positive outcomes. Practice with positive affirmations whenever a negative thought comes up. When you train your mind every day to focus on the positive, you will become more aware of your negative thought patterns and turn these around into a brighter outlook on life. Are you ready to beat homesickness and create a feeling of home away from home? To summarize the above, it’s important to realize that feelings of homesickness are like waves. They come and go. Visit places that feel familiar to you, explore your new surroundings, and make new connections. By focusing on the present moment without comparing the past or worrying about the future. You can create a safe space for yourself in the now. Do the things you love to do most and enjoy trying out new activities that make you feel more excited about your current place. Be compassionate with yourself when you experience these feelings, and don’t feel ashamed to talk to someone else about it. Try to connect with people who may have gone through the same experience or help you shift your mindset towards a more positive outlook. If you found this article interesting, feel free to connect with me and let me know how this has helped you in any way or if you need any support so that you can really thrive abroad in every area of your life. For more info, follow me on Facebook, Instagram and visit my website! Read more from Veerle! Veerle Beelen, Executive Contributor, Brainz Magazine Veerle Beelen is an Internationally recognized Certified Travel Coach. As a Travel Coach, she empowers travelers to have transformative travel experiences and focus on their “Travel Mindset.” Her goal is to help expats, and other travelers transform their personal lives and careers through their travel experiences, guide them through the preparation process of moving abroad and coach them through the transition process of living in a new country. Besides that, Veerle inspires people to use travel as a tool for personal growth, self-awareness, reflection, and to boost their overall wellbeing. She has been featured in various online media publications and guides her clients during their journey through her eBook, blog, online videos, articles, and personalized coaching sessions.

Written by: Samantha Leske, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. Healings, spiritual healings, reiki healings, crystal healings, shamanic healings to some are a completely normal way of life. For others, they may not have ever heard of them. If this is something you have embraced, you know and understand the power these experiences hold, the change they can bring to your awareness, and intern your life. Healings have the power to answer many questions that you have always wondered about and unlike traditional talk therapy (psychologists, counselors, etc) it has the potential to work on all levels of your being. I have put together a guide to help those who have either just begun on their healing journey, or who are new to it, a few pieces of information that may be helpful. Physical body healings - this is actually laying on a healing table (or some like me only offer this via distance - yes, this is possible and can be highly effective.) For those who have these sessions in person, you may be asked to remove shoes and jewelry, but clothes will remain on. Your chosen therapist may actually place their hands on you, or they may hover above as they run energy through you and the parts of your body that require support. Let them know at the beginning of your session what you feel comfortable with. A great therapist will explain what they are doing and why and happily answer any questions you have. When you experience this, it can feel very relaxing, you are being worked on, on many different levels, mental, emotional, physical and spiritual - unless specifically directed by the healer, it will go to where you need it the most. Often the issue you are having involves more than one of these layers. Our physical health, or lack of it, is not just physical - it is almost always connected to our mental and emotional bodies too. There can be blocks within our belief systems or lines of energy running through us that are requiring some healing. To explain a little deeper… Lines of energy - we all have these. (If you can imagine a train track and its beginning, it must stay connected and continuous flow for the train to get to its destination. Our lines of energy run like this too. However, they run through us, from our ancestral families, and continue on until someone within the line has the courage to stand up and say “It stops with me.” Lines of energy hold huge amounts of information and energy about us, and our mental and emotional state. Every single human has this, and is working on it - without question. What this means is having anger in your life, having anxiety or depression in your life, feeling unworthy etc. are all possible lines that can be running (the actual lines running will be different for each person). If you create an image in your mind, of each one of those being a line of energy running through your life. How big is your anger line? How big is your anxiety line? Get the picture? They exist for every emotion, and some behaviors (violence, abuse, abandonment, addiction etc). Now the stronger the lines, the bigger the lines, the more this “energy” will exist in your personal life and individual experience. Why do we have these? It allows us to have an experience, it gifts us when we have experienced this, understanding and knowledge. It helps to grow our mental, emotional and experiential knowledge. The reason we are all here - to learn and grow as souls. As we work on understanding them, and the information each holds about ourselves and our journey, take responsibility for, and then releasing the blocked energy within, it is life-changing. We no longer react the same way. Our beliefs change, our understanding deepens, and our physical reality changes too. Shadow work - this is such important work, it all is, but you really need to find someone who is skilled in this area. When participating in shadow work, you need to be able to feel safe to express the truth in how you feel. Sharing the behaviors, thoughts and patterns, you hide from the world. Thoughts and beliefs that you hide because of shame, or because it doesn't fit in with the mask you have created. It’s the you that screams at your kids or partner when they didn’t really deserve it. It is the you that can’t apologize when you know to your soul you really need to, it is the you that cuts yourself, or enjoys your addiction but hides it. It is any part of you that you feel you need to hide from the world. What needs to be understood is that we live in a world of polarity, light and dark. Without the dark, there could be no light, and without the light, there could be no dark. This is what allows us to have our various experiences and to grow as souls. If it was all love and light, we would all be comfortable and there would be no growth. Earth school is not for the faint of heart! One issue when we first start on our healing journey is that we can be under the impression, that it is all lovely, all the time, and this is what we are aiming for, enlightenment - which technically we are. However, there is much shadow work to be done, responsibility to be taken and awareness to step into. The gift we get is to have moments of true peace, moments of sitting in the light, watching with every healing we have, our connection to source and the body of light we hold growing bigger and bigger. We let go of judgment of ourselves and others. We learn that everyone is on the same journey. We are just in different places. We stop taking things personally! Sometimes we are lucky enough to be walking with another toward our home destination. Shadow work is not to be feared, it is some of the most empowering and freeing, spiritual work you will do. If you really want to know you ( and we should all know who we are - this is our responsibility), shadow work is necessary; it can't be avoided. Trauma work also needs to be included here. Trauma changes the way we view ourselves, others, and the world we live in. We begin to live from a place of trying to protect ourselves, putting into place prevention strategies of how we can avoid ever being in this position again. The issue being, it changes our point of attraction. Fear becomes our baseline of operation (we may not even be able to feel this as it has been running for so long), and this intern changes our point of attraction. Just know that if you have trauma, it is possible to heal it, and to be free of the experiences that have plagued you in the past. It means really letting go of it, once and for all. You are worth being free. Know that there is also a really high chance that this energy is very old and has been running through you or your family for eons. It heals when you decide “enough is enough” True healing doesn’t look like just having the ability to cope. Healing means actually being FREE of it. No more coping, no more burying it, freedom to live your life on your terms. It is possible. You are worthy. Aspect work - This is another game-changer - what most don’t realize is that we all have multiple personalities. If you think about your reaction to someone stealing your lunch from the work fridge, or your reaction while taking a child to a fun park - they are very different, yes? In each situation within our lives, we have different parts of us that step up to play their role at the required time they are needed. Someone who has been diagnosed with multiple personalities from a psychiatrist is someone who has received so much trauma in their life that each various personality steps forward to help the person live. However, it is so wonky that they often have no control over this, and it wreaks havoc on their lives. For those of us that are not to this extreme ( and it is just a spectrum - we all have this), we are still able to live and manage our lives, functioning in society “normally” (Let me be clear, normal is subjective) Let me give you an example - growing up, there was violence in the home, it wasn’t nice, but you are living a reasonably normal experience, you just have a strong opinion about yelling and don’t allow it in your own home. If you see someone in the street being very loud, even abusive verbally -, it makes your heart go a little faster, and you get yourself out of that situation as quickly as possible. You may or may not have in your past received therapy for this. If you have, the tools you would have been given were ones to help you be aware, to manage the situation and yourself, and then to get yourself out of there and then recover as quickly as you possibly can. When I look at this from an aspect work position - there is an aspect of you (a part of you) who is stuck at the age of when you had this experience. ( if this was something that happened over the space of many years, there would be multiple aspects within you, that have stored feelings and opinions on this topic). These aspects are powerful, they have the ability to literally stop us from moving forward with our lives in certain situations. They are the ones who have taken the duty on, of keeping us safe. They are trying to protect us. The issue being, we don’t know they are there, often ruling the show. These parts of us require us to see and hear them. They hold thoughts, feelings, beliefs, emotions, and opinions about the experience they are acting as markers for. When we take the time to hear them, allow them to have the voice they never got to have, and welcome them back into us - everyone is freed and the resistance is removed. That walk down the street with the commotion that scared you, and sent you into protective mode now becomes an awareness that someone else is having a rough time. No one stands in the street and screams because life is great, something hard is happening for them. Your heart no longer races, you see the situation for what it is and you no longer feel unsafe, you just become an observer ( who may even hold compassion or send some love to the one who is reacting). The aspect/ aspects of you no longer are needed to keep you safe, their job is done. Aspect work is powerful, it has the potential to literally change the way you view certain situations, and it most certainly releases resistance to you moving forward within your own life. It empowers us to move from living in protective mode, to feel safe, free and empowered in choice. The heart-pounding reaction that propelled the earlier reaction of fight/ flight/ freeze is no longer there. SELF LOVE is something that every soul is working on, or towards. Regardless of what your other soul mission may be, this is included. Most of us grew up in homes where our families were just doing the best they could, with what they had. Our parents and grandparents came from generations where the belief was “ If you love yourself, you are arrogant” Our generation has a better understanding of the value in holding love for self within. It dramatically changes the choices we make, the difference between making choices filled with love, and a choice not filled with love can literally be the difference between stepping into ease and grace, and the choice to live life the hard way, kicking your own backside as you travel your individual journey. A life filled with extra obstacles, people, places and a nice dose of self-loathing and little barrating as you journey. We will circle back around and be presented with various situations to show us what we are lacking (Our natural points of attraction literally come from inside us (internally). We have certain things we need to do as souls, things we need to learn, things we need to experience. We have certain choices along our path that allow us to go left or right (self-love or self-loathe). Our lessons cannot be avoided, we agreed to them before coming here. What we do get to choose is if we are going to choose the loving or loathing path - the loving path is always kinder, ALWAYS. Self-love is a skill set, it is a set of behaviors that we choose in each of the 100 (or more) various decisions we are required to make in our own lives daily. It is feeling safe to say no, it is only saying yes when we truly want to, it knows what boundary is and not feeling scared to assert it, it is having regular time built into your life that allows you, to nourish you. This is just the beginning. It is detailed, it requires awareness and for you to gift yourself with kindness when you don’t get it right, and the courage to keep going. For the opportunity to join in my next class teaching this, head here ! Past lives - now these are worth mentioning as there is a considerable amount of energy held within these; however, when you first step onto your journey, it is really important to own and clean up your immediate experience. Sometimes people can get really excited about past lives. They can be under the illusion they are doing deep work by being able to access them. Past life work can be deep and very healing (I'll talk about this a little more shortly); however, it can also be used as a way to bypass your current experience, which I guarantee requires some work, and large amounts of responsibility to be taken first. Living on antidepressants, feeling numb, living without joy and a deep-seated level of resentment for your mum ( or dad or any other significant person in your life) needs to be looked at first. Your quality of life in the here and now is paramount, and the roots lying in past lives can be found later when your skillset is ready to explore this. You first need to own who you are, and the fact that you have created your current reality, and be ready to embrace full responsibility for what that means (see why self-love is so important?) Let's spend a minute looking at why past lives are so important, (once the current experience is under control). We need to understand that our experiences are accumulative. They are all learnings, some are taught kindly, some are learned with trauma involved. When we transition from one life to another to continue our learning, we retain the same energy ( be it good/ be it bad - there really is no bad, it just becomes a point of attraction where our lessons continue). The energy carries over from one life to another. What this tells us when we understand the patterns ( and let me be clear, it is all patterns!) is that there is a root cause in a past life. So, for example, you are experiencing abandonment, but over and over again - Mum abandoned you, friends have, boyfriend/ girlfriend has etc and it just keeps happening to the point you wonder if you are lovable - now ( this is why current life work is so important) we would first look at what experiences have actually taken place, work through responsibility and ownership, understand the story attached and of course the beliefs (this involves all of the methods I have listed above) and when this is complete ( all aspects are integrated, all lines examined, self-love strongly in place, shadow work under control,) then we look at where it originated from - where is the root? What life, what situation was this originally created? Looking for your necessary keys. Other mysteries can be solved when we look at past lives too that may not be connected to original roots, things like why a fear of the dark exists when there is no logical reason why ( no trauma, etc) or why you have a certain connection, with a certain person that you just can’t seem to get past. This leads us to the important wound work. Our original wound was created the very first time you experienced a particular experience. It could be a sister wound, a scapegoat wound, an abandonment wound, an abundance wound, just to name a few. All were created in a past life (often one of your first here), but the point of attraction is the same, it is a wound inside of you, and it will continue to play out until you get to the original root cause, and do the appropriate healing. When you find the original root, it completely collapses the line existing within you, heals the experience you are having, and prevents it from running down your familial ancestral line to your children. We are cycling as souls until we clear all of these, and break all patterns and contracts involved. Uncovering of your own gifts - we all have gifts, some of you will be mediums, some will be keepers of the Earth, some the animals and some the people. Your gifts will allow your own healing journey to deepen, but it will also align you with one of the above, where you will have a specialty. The more you heal yourself, the more they will be revealed. Allowing them to come to the surface, nourish them, work with them, giving your abilities the freedom to grow and develop. Gifting you with the knowledge of who you are on a soul level, before everything happened, and what your unique role on this earth is. Be mindful that each modality has something to offer, and what resonates with you will be a personal experience. Healing is not linear, it is messy and so very layered. Each healing, gifting you a puzzle piece. Patience, learning to connect to yourself and large doses of self-love make the very worthwhile journey, so much kinder. For more info, follow me on Facebook , Instagram and visit my website ! Read more from Samantha! Samantha Leske, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Samantha Leske is a Spiritual Healer, and the CEO of Nurture you, Heal you. She specializes in trauma/ shadow work and teaching women how to love themselves unconditionally. After working in the industry for over 12 years, she has a varied skill set that allows the healings she offers, to incorporate all levels of a souls journey from this life to past and birthing timelines. Samantha has recently become a best selling author on Amazon from her contribution to the multi-author book "Intuitive, knowing her truth" Her goals in life are to live a quiet rural life with her children and animals, while engaging in her soul led mission - to help as many people awaken and heal. Loving them while they come home to themselves and their own unconditional love and acceptance for themselves. To actively be apart of the solution.

Written by: Jennifer Jank, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. The difference between tactics and strategy came up in my mentor group the other day. It’s important in many of the different aspects of running your own business to ensure you’re not spinning your wheels. Or chasing one shiny object after another. Strategy is the overarching framework for any given process or aspect of business, from beginning to end. The tactics that you implement are how you carry out your strategy. The two may be easily confused. The easiest way (IMHO) to think about them is that strategy is the why and what, and tactics are the how, when, and where. “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” — Michael Porter Marketing This may be the easiest place to distinguish between strategy and tactics. If you don’t have a framework for what you’re doing, you’re likely to bounce from idea to idea without getting any traction or consistency. But when it comes to marketing, surprisingly, strategy is not the first item to develop. Because before you do anything else, you have to identify your target market. Know what their problems are, how your solution helps them, where you can find them, and who they know. "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." — Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina When you know exactly who you’re talking to, you know the exact unhappiness they’re facing and how they feel when they get the awesome solution you provide. Only then can you develop a strategy to get them to know, like, and trust you. That’s the first step to get them to buy from you. You’ll also need a plan to turn your buyers into raving fans who provide referrals. Choosing which social media platform(s) you’re going to use to get in front of your ideal client is not a strategy. It’s a tactic. What are you going to do on that platform, and why? What is the point of what you’re doing? How will it attract your ideal client? What do you want them to do when they see your social media content? Having said all that, my hot take is that not everyone needs to niche down, depending on the service that you’re offering. I have several financial advisor friends who are doing just fine with no niche or specific audience! Many financial advisors, especially those who are not new to the career, don’t need to target an audience. They’re already getting referrals from current and existing clients. Or they’re in a location where they’re the only expert. And because they do tend to work with affluent investors, they’re essentially working with Tolstoy’s happy families. Financial planning and wealth management aren’t commodities, exactly. But for clients with $1 million or more in investable assets, the problems are usually pretty straightforward. Ensure the assets are growing, so there’s a nest egg for retirement, manage exposure to taxes (also pretty straightforward for less than $10 million or so), help the clients handle their emotions about money. Even though marketing 101 is all about finding a specific audience, when dealing with “happy families,” you don’t really have to worry about it. That doesn’t mean that the actual people are happy, just that their problems are pretty similar to others in the same demographic. Either way, once you know who you’re targeting, then you can design your marketing strategy. You need to get in front of your ideal clients, convert them from prospects to clients, and maintain relationships. Posting in a LinkedIn (or FaceBook) group is a tactic for getting in front of your audience. It’s not a strategy because what happens when you get in front of them? What do you want them to do? Share your post, make an appointment with you for a free consultation, join you on a webinar? Posting content may get you in front of potential clients and help them get to know, like, and trust you. But it probably won’t convert them to buyers. You also need a plan to take them from being admirers of your outstanding content to being buyers and/or referring others to you. I’ll be honest with you. For a while, especially early on, I was definitely guilty of having a tactic and not a strategy with content posting. I’m still happy to provide information that hopefully others find useful, but I now get that it’s not a marketing strategy. Productivity Let’s take a look at what strategy vs. tactics looks like for productivity. I use a lot of this information in my productivity training for teams. Strategy before tactics! What is productivity, really? Have you heard about how hard it is to be a delivery driver for Amazon or any other company? They go to the bathroom in bottles in their trucks because they don’t have time to take five minutes for a break. Also, they’re being tracked through GPS and other technologies. Any unexplained pause can get them in trouble. That’s not productivity. That’s wage slavery and cruelty. When you think about getting more work done, we’re not talking about pounding away at the keyboard (or steering wheel) and only pausing long enough to relieve yourself in a bottle. Yikes! Productivity also doesn’t mean regularly squeezing so much labor out of an employee that they have no energy, feelings, or thoughts left when they leave for the day. Sometimes it feels good to have worked so hard you have absolutely nothing left, but that’s not optimal daily. As a business owner, unless you’re paying your staff for 24 hours each day, you should expect them to have still some gas left at the end of the day to do other things. Incidentally, that goes for you too! Especially in the early years, when you're building your business, you might not have a lot of time left for other things, but you do need to recharge periodically. Ideally, getting more done results in fewer hours to work during the day, which gives you more time to recharge. Rest is necessary if you want to boost your productivity in the long run. Working smarter means getting the important, critical things done instead of messing around with the little stuff that doesn’t get you closer to your goal. For business owners, It’s giving yourself time to work on your business instead of in it. Spend your valuable energy making high-level decisions. Not the admin stuff that you could delegate out to an employee. What’s your plan to make that happen? If you know that you need to work for an hour every Monday morning with no distractions to complete a weekly activity, how will you avoid distractions? How will you recharge, and what do you do if something interrupts your recharging? The only way to be productive is to plan for it. Exercising for some amount of time in the morning is a tactic. Embedding the exercise into your morning routine is also a tactic. (Good tactics, by the way.) But exercise alone won’t get you to where you want to go, so make sure you have all the pieces in your strategy. Productivity tactics might include arranging your day so that you guarantee a certain number of hours spent on building relationships or reaching out to new prospects. You are not trying to find the exact shade of violet that you want for the background on your LinkedIn profile. Put the phone down, stop notifications, close your office door, set your phone to do-not-disturb, whatever. Setting the alarm in an hour so that you can look away from your computer regularly. These short breaks help you reduce eyestrain, stretch, move, and recharge before you get back to it. For employees, working smarter might involve batching tasks together. Or putting down your cell phone so you can finish the presentation your boss needs for tomorrow's meeting faster. Maybe it’s asking your boss to help you determine your priorities. Want to make your team more efficient so you can spend time growing and scaling your business? Click here for a free consultation call. Follow me on Facebook , LinkedIn , Twitter for more info! Read more from Jennifer! Jennifer Jank, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Jennifer “JJ” Jank works with those who want to be more productive and spend more time on the life side of the work-life balance. She trains high-growth teams so they can deploy high-performance strategies to work smarter. JJ holds a BA in Physics from Rutgers University and an MBA in Finance from New York University. She is a Certified Financial Planner ™ professional. Currently she’s the President for Women Leaders Forum in Coachella Valley, as well as the webmistress and Fundraising Chair for the Palm Springs chapter of AAUW. She is also a speaker on various topics including productivity, personal finance, and entrepreneurship. JJ has been published in Journal for Divorce Financial Analysts and Coachella Valley Weekly, among others. Her current books, From Zero to $avvy: A Quick Guide to Investing , Get What You De$erve: The Ultimate Guide to Divorce Finance , and Make the Leap From Employee to Entrepreneur: Your Easy and Effective Handbook to Unlock the Secrets of $avvy Business Owners are all currently available on Amazon. She can be found at the Productivity Injection website and LinkedIn at @JenniferJank .

Written by: Michelle Gauthier, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. Think about all the decisions you make in a day. It starts the moment you wake up. Do you hit snooze? Is there time to gather your thoughts? Will you do a workout before you have breakfast? What clothes will you wear today? On and on and on. Our day is full of decisions, each one taking more energy. So why, in our personal and professional lives, do we make life harder for ourselves? The first time I read The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart, I was blown away. The premise of the book is that the author didn't want to use more energy and time in a day to make decisions. Whenever he encountered a scenario or situation where he was required to make a decision, he would leave it to chance. He would write down (or think of) six options. These ranged from expected choices to deep fantasies. Then he would roll a die. Whatever the number landed on, he would do the corresponding action, no matter what. Because there were options that seemed a little risqué, even though they were deep desires, he did have moments where he considered not doing it. Then reconnected with why he set up this process in the beginning and did it anyway. I am telling you about that story for two reasons. One, it shows how people can think and their deepest desires that they usually never act upon. Two, it brings up the idea that we use so much energy and time making decisions. The decisions I am here to shine a light on, is your daily decision to not go 100% full-out. That's right. Now you may be sitting there wondering who I am to accuse you of slacking in your life. I challenge you to check where that feeling is coming from, notice your own reservations about the feeling, and where are you judging yourself in your life? I am not here to judge or accuse. I am here to shed some light. Going full out in your life does not mean you have to go absolutely insane. It means that you make things happen that you typically hold yourself back from doing. This can be in your professional, personal, or romantic lives. Since I mentioned energy, it actually takes MORE energy to hold yourself back. Think about it for a moment. You have been thinking about asking your boss for a promotion for a little while now. Working up the courage and trying to find the reasons you are 'good enough' to vouch for this raise. Every day you don't ask your boss, you use that energy wondering, thinking, worrying, and living in a life you don’t want (as you clearly want that promotion). This could go for days, weeks, months. Finally, you might convince yourself you don't actually want it anyway because it'd be too much more work, your hours will shift, you'll have to learn a new component of the job etc. Now imagine, you went 100% in that situation. You would have thought about asking your boss for a raise/promotion. If you think it, there's a part of you that feels you deserve it. Then instead of brooding on it, you would email/call/walk down the hall to visit your boss and schedule a time to talk. You would have acted. Right then and there. Maybe you would even go into their office, and bring it up right away, so there was no more time to dwell on it. Those few moments of potential anxiety, fear, lack of courage, outweigh the extended dread, fear, and not living your absolute potential. Going 100% means that you make things happen no matter what. If your eye is on a promotion, make it happen. Talk to your boss. Fluff yourself up. If they say no, then listen to their reasons, recommit to getting that promotion and put their feedback into action. If you're like me, you overthink things a lot. I do it in my relationships, in my business, and in random little areas of life. I have had full-blown conversations in my head, which convinced me I didn't need to have the actual conversation. Here's what I've learned. Those conversations I'm worried about having because I am uncomfortable, have usually gone better than my head predicted. The tasks and moments to voice my opinion that I didn't do/take, I dwell on after, and I reaffirm that I am no good. Holding myself back in those moments drained my energy because I would dwell on them, sometimes subconsciously. All the 'what ifs' that weren't answered because I didn’t go full out and find out. Think of agility training. If you had the phys-ed experience I did growing up in Canada, you had to do agility training at some point. Run as fast as you could to a cone/pylon and then change directions. The energy it took to stop and pivot was huge! If you didn’t have a great grip on the bottom of your shoes, you couldn't just turn on the dime, you'd likely slide a little then have to gain momentum again. That is what it's like when you stop yourself short of going 10/10. Even a 9/10 takes more energy and emotional toll on you because you are just in arms reach of what you really want, what fuels you, the thing that excites you, and then you stop and pivot because it's too scary or hard or whatever emotions come up. Constantly bouncing between 'should I do it, no I shouldn't. Always getting close and then changing direction. Now imagine the 100m sprint. You run as hard as you absolutely can for the 100m, and then you get to slow down as you need afterwards. Our 10/10 is like a 100m sprint. We go full out, and yes, it can be exhausting, yet we get the easy ride and recovery afterwards. I ask you, do you want to be living life unfulfilled and always getting close to your goal yet never fully see your capabilities? Are you willing to keep living life 'good enough'? Do you want to just be in your life? Or would you rather be actively living your life? Making amazing things happen that you never thought possible? Do you want to be riding the high of going after what you want, no matter how crazy it seems? I know what my choice would be. Follow me on Instagram and visit my website for more info! Read more from Michelle! Michelle Gauthier, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Michelle Gauthier, an honors graduate of Psychology and an international life and confidence coach, who writes about fitness, self-love, and boosting confidence. She has overcome a toxic workplace that left her with anxiety, depression, and low self-worth. Michelle is now a thriving founder of Phoenix Coaching, following her passion to teach and coach millennials to regain control of their lives, build their inner power and to live in possibility.

Written by: Cassandra Wiley, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. Even though the weather is getting warmer, keeping your immune system on track is still important. Many of us think that we are only vulnerable during the cold months. I remember having a cold once during the summer before I started college, and it was terrible. Here are some ways to boost your immune system: 1. Vitamin D This is a great supplement for your immune system. My family and I take it daily. Since you also get vitamin D from sunlight, we get outside to enjoy the sunshine on sunny and warm days. Fish, like salmon and tuna, also contain vitamin D in addition to mushrooms and fortified milk. 2. Eating healthy This is always a must. In my last article, I focused on being healthy after 40. Eating whole foods will give you the nutrients needed to boost your immunity. 3. Vitamin C A fresh garden salad contains lots of vitamin C in addition to citrus fruits. You can also purchase natural vitamin C, which contains acerola fruit extract, Camu Camu berry fruit, and amla berry fruit. 4. Iron Iron plays a role in many immune system processes. Spinach is a great source of iron. I recently learned that cacao powder a great source of iron. Add a little to a hot drink or food for an explosion of chocolate flavor. 5. Garlic Whether raw or cooked, garlic has many health benefits. It stimulates the immune system by increasing the body’s resistance. I use it often when I cook to add flavor. 6. Concoct a homemade elixir I drink 2-3 tablespoons of a homemade elixir daily. It contains apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, honey, cayenne pepper, ginger, clove, rosemary, cinnamon, eucalyptus, and natural vitamin C. 7. Drink plenty of water This also a must in addition to eating healthy. Do you want to live a healthier and happier life? Consider if health coaching is right for you. Visit my website here. Read more from Cassandra! Cassandra Wiley, Executive Contributor, Brainz Magazine Cassandra Wiley is a health coach and founder of Have Faith and Live Well with Chasadah LLC. She focuses primarily on chronic illnesses such as pre-diabetes, high cholesterol, and obesity. Her mission is to empower individuals to lose weight and teach a new healthier approach to food to live better lives. She was successful in reversing her pre-diabetes, and high cholesterol diagnoses naturally. The weight loss was an added benefit. She has helped clients change their diets and “have faith” in themselves to meet their health and wellness goals.