Written by Leah Williams, President, Owner & Licensed Massage Therapist Leah Williams specializing in Lymphatic drainage, imparting knowledge and expertise in Somatic release. President and Owner of Lymphatic Somatic Massage by Leah. Licensed Massage Therapist for over 25 years. Have we been conquered in some sort of silent way? Held hostage? Under threat to act or refrain from doing so? In a previous article, I spoke about our cell phone in one hand and water bottle in the other. In times past, when an enemy overtook a group or nation, the people were at times taken hostage and forced into labor. The laborers were under the care of the “commander,” and the “waterboy” was also present. Today, is our “cell phone” our commander and our “water bottle” the waterboy? I was talking to my youngest, who grew up in the midst of COVID-19. Since then, the world has changed in ways that are unrecognizable to us and unheard of for them, the younger generation. We were once a free people! We spoke on the landline phone for hours, and even if you were home alone as a minor, you had someone to call and check in on you. You were well acquainted with family and friends. They were familiar with who you were because we all shared one line. We were familiar with the nuances of the voice and even cried. We shared, planned, and congratulated, all at one time. The only setback was that we had to pay for long-distance calls. Otherwise, we would not have been sold the cell phone. As cool as it seemed, we understood that carrying it would change us. But something happened. Twenty-five years ago, on September 11, 2001, “our world,” our “entire” world, changed! I was walking into my twenties with hopes and dreams. Over the next year, we had five executive orders signed by George W. Bush, along with the Patriot Act, that changed our future. Fear, really! It drove us to carry our cell phones in our hands, and we also gave them to our children. We marched our way to “Apple and Android” and said, “We will do as you command.” And we had water bottles in our other hands. Once a free people, we were slowly conquered. We no longer waved goodbye as our family flew off on a departing plane. We had increasing threats, like Columbine, and we even had threats from “swine” and “mad cows.” We became fearful, and so did our children. Then came airbags, car seats for older children, and helmets, too! We can't even drive now without bells and whistles all the time. We got Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation, and we got dashcams! Without a commander, we have been made to feel we cannot do it for ourselves anymore. The war in Afghanistan started on October 7, 2001, and ended on August 30, 2021. We started to hear about the Mandela Effect, and I think this is just what happened to me. Because in my heart, I swore we withdrew from Afghanistan in 2014. That means that, in the midst of the United States (US) withdrawal in 2020, we had just begun COVID-19 lockdowns. We went from supporting whistleblowers to censorship. From transparency to conspiracy theory. We danced round and round, not realizing how often our cell phones had monthly updates and annual upgrades. Improved pixels and audio. Ring and Nest doorbells and video home surveillance became the norm. We were working from home, but now things are returning to normal. However, 5 o'clock traffic has been starting earlier and earlier. Tap to pay, apps, and Amazon have given us convenience! Or are we increasing the wealth of Silicon Valley? Banks formerly charged only for out-of-network transactions, but now we are paying fees with each transfer. In the midst of all this so-called convenience technology has handed us, we have lost the very essence of what it means to be human. But why? Now we work and move often solo, single, independent, as single parents, dog owners, widowed individuals, empty nesters, or orphans, and without close neighbors. Our health and social skills are lacking. Yet, we are technologically advanced. Revolution! It is a swift, fundamental change of hands. The Industrial Revolution moved to the United States around 1840, with all its economic, social, and religious facets. It began in Great Britain around 1760. Now, we have the digital revolution. Artificial intelligence (AI) has already conquered us, but we imagined robotic androids with machine guns. However, that is not necessary. Some religions call these successive revolutions Babylon the Great! Whatever the bigger picture is, one thing is for certain, we are being held hostage, and no one is able to talk openly about it until now. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Leah Williams Leah Williams, President, Owner & Licensed Massage Therapist Leah Williams, pioneering lymphatic drainage on deeper levels, brings awareness to the connection between the water of our lymph systems, our auric field, and our Soma. In her mid-thirties, over a decade ago, her own personal health challenges led her to research the lymphatic system, which in turn she merged into her massage practice. While on that journey, after witnessing Somatic release in clients, she discovered her Soma. Once an orthodox monotheist instructor, she now understands the ancient traditions of cultures around the world and their contributions towards the path of rediscovering the Authentic Human and our ability to heal from within, with the help of Creation's Energy.

Written by Joshua Bennett-Johnson, Licensed Counselor & Owner of JBJ Counseling For nearly 14 years, I've helped individuals navigate the complex landscape of addiction in order to achieve recovery. Nicknamed "The Casual Counselor", my approach is unconventional but undeniably effective. On the topic of lasagna, on one particular Sunday, we were short-staffed. It was just another server and me, and we got absolutely slammed with customers. Anyone who has ever worked in food service can describe in gory detail how difficult that job can be when you’re “in the weeds.” Nothing is going right, and you’re forgetting things amidst the chaos while you attempt to serve upwards of 15 tables at a time all by yourself. There’s not a huge amount of reciprocal teamwork on days or evenings like those. You just do your best to survive it. It’s a frantic pace of constant movement, yelling and running from here to there and back again, sometimes for four or five hours without a moment to spare. A party of five or six guys, probably in their 40s, all wearing sunglasses and all with the douchey look of Los Angeles (LA) during the new millennium, tight pants, feathered hair, the glossy and chic presentation, were seated in my section outside on the patio. I was so busy that it took me at least ten minutes to go greet them and get a drink order, bring bread and olive oil with red pepper flakes and Parmesan, and pour water from the pitcher. They were already pissy about how long they had been waiting, never taking a beat to notice two employees trying to scaffold the whole lunchtime affair, or even to care if they had noticed. They had the air of being the only ones in the packed restaurant and were not happy about not being treated as such. I got their drink order. Then, about a dozen other things happened within the span of minutes, and I forgot to get their drinks. When I got around to remembering, the group at the table was escalating from pissy attitudes to collective and obvious frustration and disdain for their server. Me. I immediately got their food orders into the computer, fired them off to the kitchen, and mentioned sympathetically that it might be “a bit longer than usual, you can see how busy we are, blah, blah, kill ‘em with kindness spiel,” and returned to the madness. It took at least 45 minutes for the lasagna bolognese and all the other selections they had ordered to come to the line. When I showed up with the plates of food, their frustration had started bordering on volcanic anger. You could actually, viscerally feel it. They brusquely thanked me without looking up while simultaneously expressing their disappointment, muttering about what “could have been just a normal fucking lunch,” and that was seemingly that. I left them with their silverware, growling tummies and pissy attitudes. I remember being inside pouring glasses of wine for a lovely young couple who were patient and understanding that things had gone a bit off the rails at the fine dining establishment that day. I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, some sort of commotion coming from the patio, and I heard yelling. I looked out the big window and saw my very confused, one and only coworker peering inside, looking for me. It was the bunch of feathered-haired brats. Something was terribly wrong at their table. More focaccia? I walked outside to find out. What I found out, when a very short man stood up, got just inches from my face and took off his sunglasses, was that I was being taken to task angrily by one Jon Bon Jovi. I hadn’t realized it was him and his entire band. Richie Sambora. All those guys. They were the pissed-off customers at my table on the patio. Jon was giving it to me. I politely asked him what the problem was. He very dramatically held up what the problem was: he had found a small, blue marble in his lasagna. When order slips went to the kitchen, they’d be printed out and moved down the line on a metal strip that was loaded with ball bearings that made for easy sliding. The problem with the design was that if you were to lift up one of these strips to wipe down the counter underneath and hold it diagonally, at an angle, there was just enough of an opening on either end to allow a marble to roll its way on out. “Plop!” Right into the meat sauce. Who knows when it happened? What we know is that it landed on Jon Bon Jovi’s plate, 45 minutes after he had ordered. This was one pissed-off 80s pop icon. The first thing that struck me when I realized who was yelling at me was how little he was. Like so many other celebs I saw in the flesh, I’d be surprised if he was 5’6” or an inch. For all I knew, he was even smaller. Perhaps he wore lifts in his boots. The rest of the band were all little guys, too. I towered over him. Jon getting in my face required him to look up. In the era before smartphones and cameras, I also noticed tourists with handheld cameras gathering around our patio to get a good look and a good shot at the hair metal star giving the business to a young waiter. What a scene! Additionally, I didn’t know how to address him. “I could have been killed!” Bon Jovi screamed at me. Trying to de-escalate the situation, I gently replied to him, “Mr. Jovi. Err. Mr. Bon Jovi, listen, Mr. Jon Bon Jovi, sir, I understand that finding a marble in your pasta sauce is completely crazy, but I seriously doubt it would have killed you.” Enter Richie Sambora, who was now standing and reprimanding me. “Of course it could have! What if it got lodged in his intestines?!? Ever think about that?!?” the guitarist yelled. “I mean, it’s pretty small,” I said, and at this point, I started becoming distracted and kind of enamored by the fact that I was being chastised by the guys who sang “Livin’ on a Prayer” and how ridiculous the whole affair was. I remember sneaking a glance at my coworker, who was trying to help me calm the man down while also trying to stifle his amusement. “Listen,” I said, “I get it. But maybe you might’ve chipped a tooth at worst?” I offered. “Are your teeth okay? I’m sure glad you didn’t swallow it.” I was losing patience. I had other customers to attend to and orders waiting in line to be served. He went on for a while, wanting to talk to the owner and declaring that they’d never return to the restaurant ever again. “Ever,” JBJ stressed. The other customers on the patio and the passersby were thoroughly entertained by the scene unfolding on that beautiful, sunny Sunday afternoon. He swore. His face turned red. He was not intimidating. Not at that height. I asked him for the marble so I could “investigate the origin,” and we ended up comping the entire meal, hundreds of dollars of the finest Italian cuisine this side of the Mississippi, for the one man who could probably buy the entire restaurant with a check from his checkbook. I got a call from Primo later that evening. “Hey, babe,” he said to me. “I heard we had a little problem with Bon Jovi at the restaurant today.” I recounted what had happened, and he quietly listened. He paused for about 20 seconds, then told me, “Well, fuck him and fuck New Jersey anyway. I’ll see you tomorrow, babe.” He hung up. No harm, no foul. No broken tooth. Just a pissed-off, washed-up rock-and-roll giant of very small stature and a story for the ages. It just so happens that we share the very same initials: “JBJ.” Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Joshua Bennett-Johnson Joshua Bennett-Johnson, Licensed Counselor & Owner of JBJ Counseling After working for 7 years in an amazing clinic, I launched into private practice in 2018. I love my job. I can say that without reservation. Watching people rebuild their lives is worth more than any dollar amount.

Written by Amy Miller, Dance Wellness Mentor Amy Miller is a renowned leader in the dance community. As a celebrated judge, mentor, and award-winning choreographer, Amy’s expertise drives success for instructors, dancers, and events alike, all while bringing wellness to a deserving community! If you've hit a plateau and can't figure out why, this is probably it. Every dancer knows the classic "triple threat", sing, dance, act. But there's another triple threat that rarely gets talked about, and it's the one quietly determining whether you break through a plateau or burn out trying. I call it technique, confidence, and wellness, and here's the truth most training programs won't tell you, neglect even one of these, and the other two can only take you so far. Technique This is the one everyone obsesses over. It's easy to see why. Technique is tangible. You can measure a turn, count and land a leap, film a combination, and pick apart every angle. But technique alone is just the execution of movement, refined over thousands of repetitions. It's necessary, but it's not the whole story. Dancers who chase technique in isolation often find themselves stuck, drilling the same skill for months with no breakthrough, wondering why more hours in the studio aren't translating to more progress. Confidence The piece most dancers assume you either have or you don't. Wrong. Confidence is trainable in exactly the same way you train a pointed foot or a flexible spine. Start seeing it as a muscle, one that gets stronger with intentional repetition, not luck or personality. A dancer with beautiful technique but no confidence will hold back on stage, second-guess a turn combination, or shrink instead of performing. Confidence is what turns correct movement into captivating movement. Wellness Here is the pillar that gets sacrificed first, and it's exactly backward. In a culture that glorifies pushing through pain, skipping rest, and training until exhaustion, wellness is treated as a luxury instead of a foundation. But wellness isn't about slowing down your progress. It's about making all your progress sustainable. Without it, you are not getting stronger as a dancer. You are becoming burnt out, getting injured, and walking away from something you used to love. If you’re not feeling it quite yet and are not making this a priority, all of these negative outcomes may seem to come out of nowhere, like the music cutting off or the stage lights suddenly going out. We have to start preparing and protecting our bodies and minds in smarter ways. Assess where you are, and let’s keep moving toward your next level Here's the real shift, technique, confidence, and wellness aren't separate lanes. They're interconnected. Pull on one, and you feel it in the others. Weak wellness undermines technique: A body and mind that are fatigued, under-recovered, or running on empty can't execute the movement they're capable of on paper. Forget the "on paper" part. You truly are 'not' at your full capacity or ability. You can drill a turn sequence for months, but if your body and mind aren’t recovering between sessions, you're training on top of exhaustion. Exhaustion is the furthest thing from helping you sharpen your technique. It only does the opposite, eroding and depleting what you’ve been working so hard on. Low confidence sabotages performances: Low confidence sabotages your performance, no matter how clean the choreography is. The audience can tell. No matter who you’re performing in front of, if you hesitate before a turn, hold back on a leap, or perform like you're apologizing for taking up space, this screams that you’re not ready. Confidence isn't a bonus layer on top of skill. In my opinion, it is a skill that we ignore. Confidence is actually what allows technique to be seen and appreciated! Technique without confidence or wellness is a house built on sand: Your technique might hold up for a while, but it's not built to last if you’re 'only' focused on that. The dancers who keep growing and improving, instead of plateauing or burning out, are the ones who train all three together, on purpose. They grasp that these three pillars are not separate boxes to check off while ignoring the others, but parts of one connected system to practice and train together. Of the three, technique, confidence, and wellness, where are you weakest right now? That's usually not the pillar to ignore. It's the one holding everything else back. That's the work I do at A Healthy Wealthy Thing, helping dancers train technique, confidence, and wellness together instead of treating one as optional. If this article struck a nerve, chances are you already know which pillar you've been neglecting. See you in my DMs (direct messages) on Instagram, @ahealthywealthything, for tips on training all three. If you're ready to go further, head to ahealthywealthything.org to see how we can work together, from courses to cue card decks to one-on-one mentorship. Your technique got you this far. Confidence and wellness are what take you further. Follow me on Instagram for more info! Read more from Amy Miller Amy Miller, Dance Wellness Mentor Amy Miller’s journey from a young protégé to a professional performer has given her a deep, firsthand understanding of the physical and mental demands of the dance world. Recognizing that burnout is a silent epidemic in the industry, she has transitioned her focus toward helping dancers find the wellness answers they’ve been searching for. By bridging the gap between elite performance and biological science, Amy provides relatable, actionable strategies to help performers reclaim their vitality. Whether through mastering "limbic friction" with small habit shifts or optimizing recovery with targeted supplementation, her mission is to show that when we feel better, we perform and live better.

Written by Connie Ng, Holistic Practitioner, Quantum Healing Facilitator & Transformational Coach Connie Ng is an international speaker helping people overcome chronic pain, mobility issues, and complex health challenges, especially when conventional approaches fall short. Integrating Five Elements philosophy, vibrational medicine, and mind-body coaching, she empowers clients to reclaim their health, reconnect with who they truly are, and create lasting transformation. As I write this, it is 1 September, the first day of spring here in Australia. Canberra has not exactly transformed into a botanical paradise overnight, but there is already something different in the light. There is something about the promise of spring, with its renewal, new beginnings, and the sense of bringing new things to life, that makes me want to open windows, clear cupboards, and finally deal with whatever I have successfully ignored throughout winter. It also feels like a natural time to consider what we have accumulated physically, emotionally, and energetically, and what may now be ready to move on. My idea of a spring cleanse is not to make food the enemy, live miserably on green juice, or sit through a three-day water fast watching everybody else eat dinner. After spending much of the past month writing about biohacking, I am increasingly wary of turning looking after ourselves into another endurance event. My training in Traditional Chinese Medicine Five Elements theory and Macrobiotic Health takes me somewhere more fundamental, "What has become stagnant, what we are continually loading into the system, and what conditions might help the body do its own housekeeping more efficiently?" Why spring makes sense through a five elements lens Traditional Chinese Medicine associates spring with the Wood element, and the Liver and Gallbladder with Wood. Wood relates to growth, planning, flexibility, direction, and movement, while the Liver is traditionally associated with the smooth flow of Qi and with the sinews. Nature makes the metaphor obvious. After winter, plants push upwards, branches extend, and what appeared dormant starts moving again. Human beings may be somewhat less elegant about it. Winter can bring heavier food, less movement, more time indoors, and the gradual accumulation of habits we promised ourselves we would eventually address. Spring arrives, and suddenly “eventually” has a date. For me, spring really is an invitation to do a proper clean-out. I just do not think we need to make the body suffer for the privilege. Water fasting can be demanding, while a prolonged juice fast may be far too cooling or simply unsuitable for some constitutions. Clearing accumulated load while continuing to give the body something useful to work with is one reason the philosophy of enzyme cleansing later made sense to me. Cleansing and nourishment do not necessarily have to sit on opposite sides of the fence. That balance sits comfortably with Five Elements theory, which is always inquiring how different parts of the system support, regulate, and restore one another rather than operating in isolation. The body knew how to detox before detox became fashionable One of the stranger developments in wellness culture is the way detoxification can be marketed as though the human body was completely helpless until somebody invented a sachet or a pill. The body is already doing an extraordinary amount of detoxification work behind the scenes. The liver metabolises and processes substances, the kidneys filter the blood, the gastrointestinal tract moves waste through the system, and multiple physiological pathways continually transform and eliminate what is no longer required. We are walking around with a remarkably sophisticated detoxification system built in. Cleansing, to me, is therefore less about seeing how forcefully we can make the body purge and more about recognising the extra work our everyday choices may be creating. Alcohol, highly processed food, poor sleep, chronic stress, overeating, inadequate movement, and unhappy digestion all contribute something to the terrain, whether or not we ever formally decide to “do a detox”. This overlaps with what I explored in The Biohacking Blind Spot and Why You Need to Understand Your Body First. Before piling something else onto the organism, it helps to understand what the organism is already trying to manage. My right foot gave me a lesson I was not expecting My first ZenCleanz experience in 2023 made cleansing considerably more personal. In March that year, I travelled back to Singapore for family time and a large reunion, spent five days in Vietnam for a wedding, then returned to Singapore before heading home. It was my first proper trip back after roughly three and a half years of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) disruption, so there was plenty of catching up, eating, and celebrating packed into about three and a half weeks. Ordinarily, I might drink alcohol only a few times in an entire year. On that trip, however, it became an almost daily feature of socialising. My liver probably wondered who I was and what I had done with the usual Connie. During the holiday, significant pain began developing around the inner arch of my right foot, close to the heel. By the time I reached Vietnam, walking was becoming uncomfortable, and my mobility was starting to suffer. The pain followed me back to Singapore and then home to Canberra, fluctuating from day to day but never properly disappearing. The glaring departure from my normal lifestyle was the sheer quantity of alcohol I had consumed over those weeks. I strongly believe my body was struggling with a load it simply was not accustomed to carrying. Around four months later, in July 2023, I decided to do my first seven-day ZenCleanz Rainbow cleanse. My reasons had nothing to do with my foot. I wanted to reset my body, lose some weight, and see whether clearing the gut might help some lingering eczema patches. During the cleanse, the persistent pain in my right foot reduced by around 90%. After months of living with it, that was not something I could casually brush aside. My practitioner brain began connecting the dots afterwards. Within Five Elements theory, Wood is associated with the Liver, which is traditionally connected with the sinews and the smooth movement of Qi. Given that the pain had emerged during such an unusually alcohol-heavy period for me, the connection was difficult to miss. Its location deepened my curiosity because the painful area around the inner arch sat close to a Liver zone on reflexology maps I had studied. Energetic and metaphysical traditions had also introduced me to laterality, where the left side is often associated more with receiving, while the right relates to giving, action, and outward expression. Since my symptoms appeared specifically on the right, I began wondering whether there was another symbolic layer around release, elimination, and the body's attempt to move something out. That became part of my own practitioner theory about what my body had been communicating. I have long thought of the human body as an enormous detoxifying machine, continually processing, transforming, and eliminating excess in its effort to return itself to equilibrium. After placing such an unusual burden on mine for several weeks, perhaps the pain and restricted movement reflected difficulty shifting what needed to move. Through a Five Elements lens, that loss of easy movement also brought me back to stagnation, or stuck Qi. The timing, alcohol intake, persistent right-foot pain, restriction in movement, Five Elements and reflexology associations, followed by a roughly 90% improvement during a cleanse undertaken for completely different reasons, all seemed to form a pattern worth remembering. Experiences like that make me reluctant to automatically separate everything into unrelated boxes. Physical symptoms, lifestyle, energetic themes, and the body's own attempts to restore balance may be far more interconnected than they first appear. Why ZenCleanz made sense to me By the time I came across ZenCleanz, much of its philosophy felt strangely familiar. It uses a Traditional Chinese Medicine Five Element-inspired approach to cleansing, looking at digestion, detoxification, circulation, respiration, and regeneration as interconnected functions rather than treating each organ system as though it exists in its own little universe. As a Five Elements Coach, I already spoke that language. Its formulations use a wide range of plant foods fermented for more than three years in Taiwan, producing what I think of as essentially predigested, enzyme-rich nourishment for the body to work with while cleansing. The idea is not simply to stop feeding ourselves and wait for everything to clear, but to continue providing nourishment while helping accumulated waste move through. ZenCleanz also describes Buddhist sutras and vibrational intention as part of its fermentation environment. Considering that my work spans Five Elements theory and vibrational medicine, and I happen to be a fairly token Buddhist without being particularly religious about it, you can probably understand why my curiosity was well and truly piqued. The intestinal-cleansing philosophy is where my visually graphic, slightly disgusting sewerage pipe analogy tends to enter conversations with clients. Imagine the digestive tract as a large plumbing system, food enters, useful material is absorbed, and waste needs to move out. Cleansing traditions use the term “mucoid plaque” for some of the thick, ropey, or mucus-like material people report passing during intestinal cleanses. Among seasoned detoxers, passing this elusive material can become something of a holy grail. In fasting circles, I have heard people talk about undertaking extended water fasts before seeing anything they identify as “mucoid plaque”, while juice fasters may also wait weeks or months. ZenCleanz users commonly report seeing similar-looking material much sooner, sometimes within the first day or two, with elimination continuing when the liquid phase or fast is extended. I sometimes describe the fermented enzymes as little “Pac-Men” working their way through an overloaded sewerage system, helping break down and sweep through what has accumulated while the body continues receiving nourishment. It is deliberately graphic, but my clients usually understand the idea immediately. During some of my longer ZenCleanz cleanses, I have continued passing what cleansing circles call “mucoid plaque” for as long as six days. Observing changes in elimination, digestion, and the way my body feels throughout the process makes the philosophy considerably more meaningful to me than simply reading about it on a packet. ZenCleanz therefore fits comfortably within my practitioner worldview. Five Elements theory repeatedly brings me back to balance and relationships, and enzyme cleansing works with a similar premise, we can give the system a decent spring clean without necessarily asking the body to run on empty while we do it. What I noticed during my first Rainbow cleanse The improvement in my foot was the surprise that made me sit up, but it was hardly the only change during that first seven-day Rainbow cleanse. I lost 4.1 kilograms, felt noticeably clearer mentally and more energetic, saw improvement in the remaining eczema patches on my body, and thought my skin looked brighter. My history with eczema has taught me not to assume the skin is necessarily where the story begins, something I explored in Tried Everything? What If Your Skin Isn't the Problem But the Messenger?. Having several things shift within the same week made me curious enough to explore ZenCleanz much further. During 2024, I deliberately worked my way through every ZenCleanz detox kit across all Five Elements. I began with the Rainbow cleanse supporting the Gut and Liver, corresponding with Earth and Wood, then moved through the Lungs with Metal, Blood and Lymph with Fire, and Kidneys with Water. If I was going to incorporate a Five Element-based cleansing system into my work with clients, I wanted to experience each part from inside my own body. ZenCleanz's testimonial library also includes medical doctors, nurses, holistic practitioners, experienced fasters, and everyday users, with people describing changes in energy, mental clarity, digestion, skin, food sensitivities, mood, addictive patterns, and general wellbeing. What I find particularly noteworthy is how often those stories describe shifts across several apparently unrelated areas at once. I explored a similar idea in What Do Your Skin, Gut, and Lungs Have in Common? More Than You Think and, from the emotional perspective, in When the Body Speaks: Decoding Mental Health with the Five Elements. Traditional healing systems developed through generations of practitioners observing real people and noticing which changes repeatedly appeared together. That instinct still makes sense to me. When enough seemingly unrelated pieces begin shifting at once, my instinct is to become more curious, not less. This is where I want to pause, because a cleanse is only the reset. What happens afterward opens up a much bigger conversation about food, constitution, longevity, and our relationship with the body. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Connie Ng Connie Ng, Holistic Practitioner, Quantum Healing Facilitator & Transformational Coach Connie Ng is a Multi-Disciplined Holistic Practitioner and Quantum Healing Facilitator who specialises in helping clients overcome chronic physical and emotional conditions by addressing their root cause at the energetic level. Blending Five Elements wisdom with Star Magic Healing, vibrational medicine, and holistic counselling, she facilitates deep transformation for those who feel stuck despite trying everything. Connie is the founder of The Salt Therapy Clinic & Sanctuary and works with clients both in-person and remotely. Curious to experience ZenCleanz for yourself? Shop through my practitioner link and enter promo code: CONNIENG at checkout to receive 5% off your order. ZenCleanz practitioner link. Affiliate disclosure: I am a Holistic Practitioner and Affiliate who uses Zencleanz products in my clinical practice. I may receive a commission from purchases made through my affiliate link.

Written by Bronwen Sciortino, International Author & Simplicity Expert Bronwen Sciortino is an International Author and Simplicity Expert who spent almost two decades as an award-winning executive before experiencing a life-changing event that forced her to stop and ask the question, ‘What if there’s a better way to live? What if becoming better is no longer the point? I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how much time we spend trying to improve ourselves. Wherever we turn, someone is encouraging us to become healthier, happier, more productive, or a little more successful. We're told we have to read this book, try another approach, or work on another part of ourselves that still needs fixing. None of that is inherently bad. In fact, sometimes it does help us become healthier, wiser, and more aware than previous generations. But I've found myself wondering whether we're still answering the right question. What if becoming better was never meant to be the destination? What if we've reached a point where the greatest act of growth isn't improving ourselves, but deciding for ourselves what kind of life is worth living? It’s not that I think self-improvement has been a mistake. Quite the opposite, learning to understand myself better transformed my life. It helped me recover from burnout, build healthier relationships, develop greater emotional awareness, and make choices that better reflect who I am. The problem isn't the time we spend growing. It’s that somewhere along the way, growth became a fad, a thing you ‘have’ to do to be successful. We became so absorbed in asking how we could become better that we quietly stopped asking a different question altogether, "Who, or what, is shaping the details of what ‘better’ actually is?" Who’s really setting the direction? Self-improvement has become the ‘in thing’. It’s become so normal that we’ve stopped noticing where the ideas come from, we’ve become more absorbed in the concept of being seen to be improving. We consume these ideas through social media, podcasts, books, workplaces, and even well-meaning friends. We rarely stop to ask who decided that this is what a successful, healthy, or meaningful life should look like. Instead, we keep moving from one goal to the next, assuming that if we just keep improving ourselves, we'll eventually arrive. But what if we've confused progress with direction? After all, becoming better only matters if we're moving towards something that truly matters to us. Otherwise, we can spend years climbing a ladder with great determination, only to realise it was leaning against the wrong wall all along. I’m starting to think that this is where the conversation needs to change. Instead of asking how we can become a better version of ourselves, maybe it's time to ask who is directing the life we're living. The two questions might sound similar, but they lead us in very different directions. Self-improvement is often driven by someone else's definition of success, whether we realise it or not. Self-direction begins when we pause long enough to decide what matters to us, what we're no longer willing to chase, and how we want to respond to the world around us. It isn't about becoming more, it's about becoming intentional. The cost of looking outside ourselves Self-improvement has become one of the world's biggest industries, and like every successful industry, it depends on people continuing to buy what it has to offer. That doesn't mean the books, courses, or experts are wrong, many have changed lives for the better. But it does mean that the conversation is often built around one underlying assumption, that there is another version of you waiting to be shaped. Another habit to master, another mindset to adopt, another breakthrough just around the corner. It's a compelling idea because it gives us hope. But it also means we can spend years chasing a future version of ourselves without ever stopping to ask whether we've already become enough to decide our own direction. There comes a point when the question becomes whether you're living a life that reflects what matters most to you. That’s not the same as whether you can become a better version of yourself. One is measured by how closely you match an ideal. The other is measured by how honestly you live. That's why I believe we've reached the end of self-improvement as the dominant conversation. Not because there's nothing left to learn, but because learning was never meant to replace thinking. There comes a time when we have to stop borrowing other people's definitions of success, fulfilment, and growth and start deciding for ourselves what those words actually mean. The courage to decide Perhaps this is where the next stage of growth begins. Not with another course, another framework, or another expert promising to help us become a better version of ourselves. It begins the moment we find the courage to stop asking everyone else who we should become and start deciding, for ourselves, what kind of life we want to live. That doesn't mean we stop learning. It doesn't mean we stop seeking wisdom or become closed to new ideas. The difference is that we stop treating every new insight as another instruction to follow. Instead, we allow it to challenge our thinking, deepen our understanding, and help us make decisions that are aligned with our own values rather than someone else's expectations. That's the difference between self-improvement and self-direction. One asks us to keep becoming who the world tells us we ‘should’ be. The other invites us to make choices that allow us to become more fully ourselves. It asks us to think more deeply, choose more consciously, and trust ourselves more completely than we ever have before. So perhaps we've reached the end of self-improvement after all. Not because there is nothing left to learn, but because there comes a time when learning has to make way for living. A time when the most important question is no longer "How can I become better?" but "What does this moment in history need from me?" The answer will be different for each of us. That's the point. For the first time, no one else gets to decide. Bronwen Sciortino is a Simplicity Expert, Professional Speaker, and internationally renowned author. You can follow her on her website, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. Read more from Bronwen Sciortino Bronwen Sciortino, International Author & Simplicity Expert Bronwen Sciortino is an International Author and Simplicity Expert who spent almost two decades as an award-winning executive before experiencing a life-changing event that forced her to stop and ask the question, ‘What if there’s a better way to live?’ Embarking on a journey to answer this question, Bronwen developed a whole new way of living, one that teaches you to challenge the status quo and include the power of questions in everyday life. Gaining international critical acclaim and 5-star awards for her books and online programs. Bronwen spends every day teaching people that there is an easy, practical, and simple pathway to creating a healthy, happy, and highly successful life. Sought globally for media comment as an expert and working with corporate programs, conference platforms, retreats, professional mentoring, and in the online environment, Bronwen teaches people how easy it is to live life very differently.

Written by Shelly O'Connell, Flirting Coach for Women Shelly O’Connell is redefining flirting by challenging outdated assumptions with fun, insightful perspectives. She is a Flirting Coach for Women and the author of the book, Finding Your Flirt. There is a lot of pressure placed on women when it comes to attraction. Look better. Dress better. Say the right thing. Don't text too soon. Don't text too much. Be confident but not intimidating. Show interest, but not too much. Be feminine, but don't lose yourself. No wonder dating can feel exhausting. Women are often taught that being attractive means perfecting the outside of themselves. But attraction isn't a checklist, and men aren't walking around with a mental scorecard determining whether you've achieved the perfect combination of hair, body, clothing, conversation, and charm. What men notice first has much less to do with perfection and much more to do with presence. Attraction isn't a performance Physical attraction matters. Pretending that it doesn’t matter would be unrealistic. But attraction is about more than physical appearance. Think about someone you've met who immediately captured your attention. Maybe she wasn't the most conventionally beautiful woman in the room. Maybe she wasn't wearing the most fashionable outfit or saying the cleverest things. Yet there was something about her. She seemed comfortable in her own skin. She was engaged in the conversation. She laughed easily. She looked interested in what was happening around her. She wasn't constantly checking to see how she was being perceived. She was present. That kind of presence can be incredibly attractive because it communicates something deeper than appearance. It communicates that I'm comfortable being me. Men respond to presence, not perfection When you're trying to be perfect, you're rarely fully present. You're thinking about how you look instead of enjoying the moment. You're analyzing his reaction instead of listening to what he's saying. You're wondering whether you should smile, touch his arm, ask a question, or wait for him to make the next move. You're watching yourself instead of experiencing yourself. That self-monitoring can become exhausting. Imagine what would happen if you stopped trying to manage every impression you make. What if you allowed yourself to be curious? What if you laughed because something was genuinely funny? What if you made eye contact because you wanted to connect? What if you let your personality show instead of trying to calculate the most attractive response? You might discover that the woman who feels the most magnetic isn't the woman trying the hardest to be magnetic. She's the woman who is actually there. The most attractive thing may be your relationship with yourself Self-connection is often overlooked when we talk about attraction. We tend to focus on how to get someone else's attention. But before you can genuinely connect with another person, there is another relationship worth paying attention to, the one you have with yourself. Do you know what you like? Do you know what makes you laugh? Do you know what you're curious about? Do you know what feels good to you? Do you know what you want and what you don't want? When you're connected to yourself, dating becomes less about performing for approval and more about participating in an experience. Instead of asking, Does he like me? You begin asking, Do I like how I feel around him? That is a powerful shift. Stop auditioning for the role of "desirable woman" Many women have unknowingly turned dating into an audition. They walk into a room wondering whether someone will find them attractive. They carefully choose what to say. They worry about being too interested, too independent, too sexy, too successful, too available, or too much. But attraction isn't about convincing someone to select you. You are not applying for the position of girlfriend. You're meeting another human being and discovering whether there is a spark. That means you get to notice him, too. You get to wonder whether his energy feels good to you. Whether you're curious about him. Whether you enjoy talking to him. Whether you feel relaxed enough to be yourself. Flirting becomes much more enjoyable when you're not trying to win. You're simply exploring. Confidence changes the way you experience attention Confidence isn't about believing everyone will find you attractive. It's knowing that you don't need everyone to. That's an important distinction. When your confidence comes from within, someone else's lack of interest doesn't have to become a verdict on your appearance or your worth. Rejection can simply mean there wasn't a match. When someone is interested, you can enjoy it without immediately turning their attention into a measurement of your value. You can receive a compliment without questioning whether they really mean it. You can enjoy being noticed without needing to be chosen. You can flirt without knowing where the interaction is going. That freedom creates space for something much more authentic, connection. Your body knows when you're performing There's another reason presence matters. Your body often knows when you're trying too hard. You may become tense. Your smile feels forced. You're thinking several steps ahead. Your attention moves from the person in front of you to the imaginary audience inside your head. When that happens, you become enmeshed in an inner dialogue that focuses on you. You may find yourself thinking, “How am I doing? Did that sound stupid? Does he think I'm attractive? Should I say something else?” It's difficult to experience pleasure and connection when your mind is busy grading your performance. Flirting invites you back into the moment. Notice your surroundings. Notice your senses. Notice your curiosity. Notice how your body feels. Notice the person you're talking to. You don't have to manufacture chemistry. You simply have to be available to experience it. The woman who enjoys herself is different There's something compelling about a woman who isn't waiting for someone else to give her permission to enjoy herself. She laughs with her friends. She enjoys her coffee. She gets excited about what she's doing. She notices beauty. She dances. She plays. She engages with life. She isn't necessarily trying to attract anyone. That's part of what makes her attractive. Her energy isn't saying, Please notice me. It's saying, I'm already enjoying being here. That is presence. Presence creates an entirely different experience of flirting. You don't have to become more attractive One of the biggest myths women can believe is that they need to become more attractive before they can have the relationship they want. Here are a few of those limiting myths, lose weight, change your hair, buy better clothes, get younger-looking skin, learn better dating techniques, become more mysterious. The list never ends. But what if the answer isn't becoming more attractive? What if it's becoming more connected to the woman you already are? Your beauty doesn't need to be perfect for you to flirt. Your body doesn't need to look a certain way for you to feel sensual. Your personality doesn't need to appeal to everyone for you to be confident. You don't need to eliminate every insecurity before you allow yourself to be seen. You can start where you are. Flirting starts with noticing We often talk about flirting as something you do to make someone notice you. But perhaps flirting starts somewhere else. You notice first. You notice the person you're talking to. You notice what makes you smile. You notice when someone catches your attention. You notice your own response. You notice the spark. Then you allow yourself to respond authentically. A glance. A smile. A playful comment. A genuine question. A moment of laughter. None of these require perfection. They require presence. This is why inner work changes outer results When you work on your relationship with yourself, the way you show up in the world begins to change. You may stop chasing attention and become more discerning about whose attention you actually want. It is possible that you stop overanalyzing every text and start communicating more naturally. You shift from worrying about whether you're enough and become more interested in whether the connection is enough for you. You could become more comfortable being seen because you aren't relying on someone else's reaction to tell you who you are. This is why inner work changes outer results. The goal isn't to become a woman who can attract anyone. It's to become a woman who is so connected to herself that she can recognize and create genuine connection when it appears. Your most magnetic quality may already be there You don't need to walk into a room as the most beautiful woman in it. You don't need the perfect outfit. You don't need the perfect body. You don't need the perfect opening line. You don't even need to feel completely confident. You simply need to be willing to be present. Let yourself enjoy the moment. Let your curiosity lead. Let your personality show. Let yourself be seen without turning the experience into an audition. Because the woman men notice may not be the woman who worked the hardest to get noticed. She may be the woman who forgot to perform because she was too busy enjoying herself. Perhaps that's the real secret to attraction. You don't become magnetic by trying harder to be noticed. You become magnetic by becoming more deeply connected to yourself. "You don't have to be perfect to be magnetic. You just have to be present." If you're ready to reconnect with your confidence, rediscover your playful energy, and experience flirting as a natural expression of who you are, explore my Flirting Coaching options and discover how coaching can help you create more confidence, connection, and joy in your dating life. Visit Shelly O'Connell, Flirting Coach for Women, to explore your options and begin your journey. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Shelly O'Connell Shelly O'Connell, Flirting Coach for Women Shelly O’Connell is a dynamic innovator offering a fresh perspective on what flirting truly is at its heart, an authentic expression of confidence, connection, and joy. As a Flirting Coach for Women and the author of Finding Your Flirt, she blends insight, humor, and real-world experience to help women feel at ease expressing interest. Her work empowers women to enjoy dating again, create genuine connections, and attract high-quality partners without playing games. Through her writing and coaching, Shelly invites women to release limiting patriarchal rules and rediscover flirting as a natural, learnable, and enjoyable skill.

Written by Catherine (Katie) Ruffino, NLP Master Practitioner Katie Ruffino, PA-C, NLP Master Practitioner, and founder of Pure Pathways Collective, merges medicine, mindset, and artistry to inspire holistic transformation. Known for her work in detoxification, subconscious rewiring, and her Katie in the Kitchen series, she helps leaders embody health, vitality, and authentic self-expression. If you knew you only had one life, how would you choose to live it? Would you go all out and take greater risks for the possibility of greater reward, knowing you would rather live fully than cautiously? Or would you play it safer and “smarter” because you wanted to get your one chance right? I would assume that most people, if they knew this was their only shot, would choose to live life to the fullest. Why else would they be here other than to actually live? Yet, I could make the opposite argument just as easily. If someone believed this was their only life, perhaps they would become more careful. With no second chance, every major decision could feel heavier. They might take fewer risks because there would be no opportunity to come back and try again. I might also assume that someone who believes in reincarnation would live more daringly. If this is one of many lifetimes, perhaps there is less pressure to make every move perfectly. Then again, believing there will be another life could make it easier to postpone fully inhabiting this one. Arguments can be made for every side, and there may not be one right or wrong way at all. So let us take the question further. What if you knew, without question, that this was your only chance at life? Meaning, there’s no endless series of incarnations, no practice rounds, and not even an experience you could revisit in another body, another place, or another time. Knowing that, would you finally write the book, leave the job, take the trip, say what you mean, or choose the life you secretly want? Or would it make you even more afraid to choose? Many people already believe they only live once and still spend years waiting for certainty, confidence, or permission. Meanwhile, believing we may return can free us to experiment or tempt us to assume there will always be another chance. But that belief contains its own temptation, the illusion that there will always be another chance. So which belief helps us live more fully? Perhaps neither, unless it brings us back into this life. Here’s what the research can and cannot tell us I was curious whether research might reveal a clear relationship between beliefs about the afterlife and a person’s willingness to take risks. The evidence was less conclusive than my assumptions. One study using data from Danish twins initially found an association between risk attitudes and religious behavior among people who believed in an afterlife, but it was no longer statistically significant after a stronger twin pair analysis. The study did not directly compare reincarnation with belief in one life or show that either belief causes courage or caution. That ambiguity may be the more interesting finding for our purposes. A belief system does not automatically determine how a person will play the game. The same belief can become an invitation into freedom or a reason to remain afraid. So what actually influences how you choose to live the most? (We’ll come back to that in another article.) When one life becomes too much pressure There is something clarifying about remembering that our time here is limited. The awareness of death can strip away the trivial and reveal what matters. It can remind us that there are conversations we need to have, dreams we keep postponing, and parts of ourselves we no longer want to abandon. But “you only live once” can also become an impossible assignment. Get it right. Choose the perfect career. Find the perfect partner. Live in the right place. Fulfill your purpose. Do not waste time. Do not make a mistake you cannot undo. Suddenly, life stops feeling like something we are living and starts feeling like something we are being graded on. We can become so determined not to waste our one life that we waste years analyzing how to live it. We stay in what is familiar because a known discomfort feels less frightening than an unknown outcome. We call it responsibility, patience, or waiting for the right time, but sometimes, beneath all of that, we are simply afraid. The desire to make your life count can quietly become the fear that keeps you from participating in it. When endless chances become another way to wait The possibility that we may live more than once offers a very different kind of comfort. It can loosen our grip on perfection. It can allow us to see life as a place of learning rather than a test we either pass or fail. Maybe we did not come here to execute a flawless plan. Maybe we came here to experience, create, love, lose, discover, remember, and grow. I find freedom in that perspective. When life is not an exam, a wrong turn does not have to mean I failed. It may simply reveal something I could not have learned by standing still. Yet even a freeing belief can become a hiding place. If we assume the soul has endless opportunities, it may become easier to postpone the courage required now. We can tell ourselves there will be another season, another version of us, perhaps even another lifetime in which we finally become who we sense we are meant to be. Whether or not we receive another lifetime, “later” remains one of the most convincing stories we tell ourselves in this one. Realize that if you never take the steps out of fear of failure, then you’ve already failed. Failure is not defined by the outcome, but rather by never trying. I was trying to figure out my life before living it I know what it feels like to search for the choice that will finally make everything make sense. For years, medicine represented security, credibility, and proof that I was on the right path. I had invested time, money, education, and so much of my identity into becoming a physician assistant. Leaving was not simply a career decision. It asked me to question who I was without the role I had worked so hard to earn. Part of me wanted a guarantee that choosing differently would lead to something better. I wanted to know that if I released the life that looked responsible, the next one would immediately validate the decision. I wanted certainty before I moved. But life rarely offers proof in advance. Eventually, I had to confront a more honest question, "Was I staying because this life still felt true, or because I was afraid of being wrong?" I began to recognize that remaining in a life that no longer felt like mine was not the absence of a decision. It was a decision I was making every day. I was treating my life like something I needed to figure out before I was allowed to live it. Leaving did not give me immediate certainty about every step that would follow. It gave me something more useful, the opportunity to meet myself through the choice. I could receive feedback, adjust, learn, and choose again. My path did not need to be perfectly planned to be authentically mine. That experience changed what it means to take life seriously. Taking my life seriously does not mean demanding that I never make a mistake. It means taking responsibility for participating in it. What if life is a game? Calling life a game can sound dismissive, as if our choices and losses do not matter. But think about how we actually play a meaningful game. We commit. We pay attention. We develop skills. We encounter obstacles. We make decisions without knowing exactly how they will unfold. Sometimes the outcome is what we hoped for, and sometimes the entire strategy has to change. The game matters while we are playing it, but one move does not determine our worth. The concept of failure is also often mistaken. What is failure, even? Is it simply not reaching the outcome one originally named, or is it discovering an approach that didn’t work? Is it giving up, or is failure itself largely a meaning we assign after the fact? This reminds me of a hike I recently did in Ogden, Utah. I got tired around 90% of the way up to the top of Taylor Canyon and considered stopping. If I had turned around at that point, I might’ve labeled that as a failure if my intention was to reach the top. But that label would not have been appropriate if my intention was to simply enjoy the hike, move my body, and explore new terrain. This is why intention matters. We often judge our lives by a finish line without asking what we actually came to experience along the way. Worse, many people decide they have failed before failure is even possible. They take three steps on a 20-step staircase, do not see the outcome yet, and interpret the incomplete process as proof that they cannot succeed. There is a foundational principle in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). There is no failure, only feedback. If something does not unfold the way we hoped, we have not received a final verdict about who we are. We have received information. We can adjust, continue, or consciously choose a new direction. Children understand this instinctively. They can become completely absorbed in play without needing the experience to prove who they are. They experiment, imagine, and respond to what happens. When the rules no longer work, they create new ones. Many adults have forgotten how to live this way. We confuse seriousness with significance. We assume that if something matters, we must approach it with tension, control, and fear. But what if devotion and play belong together? What if we could care deeply without gripping so tightly? What if we could commit to what feels true while remaining flexible about how it unfolds? What if changing direction did not mean the previous choice was a waste, but that it gave us the information required for the next one? Maybe life is meant to be played lightly, but lived wholeheartedly. Playing to live instead of playing not to lose There is a difference between playing to live and playing not to lose. When we play not to lose, our choices revolve around avoiding embarrassment, rejection, regret, and uncertainty. We may look responsible from the outside while slowly disconnecting from ourselves. We outsource decisions and wait for someone else to approve the life we already know we want. We stay close to what is safe, even when safe has become small. Sometimes we follow someone else’s blueprint because their results appear to offer certainty. We may even recreate their success, and still feel strangely unfulfilled. Their path worked for their life, intentions, and values, but it may not express our own authentic signature. The point is to notice when we are using someone else’s path as guidance and when we are using it to avoid creating a life of our own. When we play to live, we are still thoughtful. We consider consequences and honor our responsibilities. But fear is no longer the only voice allowed to make decisions. We listen to what creates aliveness. We become willing to disappoint an outdated version of ourselves, and we let life give us feedback rather than demanding that it give us guarantees. Success then becomes more than arriving at a particular destination. It includes who we become, what we discover, and whether we were actually present enough to enjoy the journey. When joy exists only at the finish line, we can spend most of our lives waiting to receive the fruit. Play allows us to experience some of that fruit now. This is not an invitation to make reckless choices. It is an invitation to notice whether caution is protecting something meaningful, or protecting you from being fully seen in your own life. Two questions that may change how you play Take a few quiet minutes and answer these questions without trying to sound wise, spiritual, or practical: If this were my only lifetime, what would I stop postponing? If life were a game I was allowed to learn through, what would I stop taking so painfully seriously? Then ask, "What choice becomes possible when I hold both answers at once?" Perhaps one answer reveals where you have been withholding yourself. The other may reveal where perfectionism has made life heavier than it needs to be. You may not need to quit your job, end a relationship, or reinvent your entire life tomorrow. The next move could be much smaller, have the conversation, submit the application, rest without earning it first, create something imperfectly, or admit what you want. Small choices teach us that we can trust ourselves inside the unknown. This version of you is here now I do not know whether we receive one lifetime or many. I have beliefs, questions, and moments of deep spiritual knowing, but I do not need absolute certainty about what comes after this life to decide how I want to meet the one in front of me. This version of me, in this body, surrounded by these people, and presented with these particular choices, will never exist in exactly this way again. The same is true for you. Maybe that is enough reason to be here fully. Play. Experiment. Change your mind. Let yourself learn. Care deeply. Love people while they are here. Choose what feels true, and allow life to refine you along the way. Do not confuse holding life lightly with withholding yourself from it. You do not have to get this life perfectly right. You do have to be willing to live it. To learn more, check out my website here. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Catherine (Katie) Ruffino Catherine (Katie) Ruffino, NLP Master Practitioner Katie Ruffino, PA-C, NLP Master Practitioner, and founder of Pure Pathways Collective, is a recognized voice in functional and regenerative medicine. She helps leaders and entrepreneurs achieve holistic transformation through detoxification, nervous system regulation, and subconscious rewiring. Her work emphasizes emotional release and deep reconnection to the self, creating space for clarity, vitality, and freedom. Drawing from her medical background and her passion for creativity, Katie also created the Katie in the Kitchen series, where she shares stories, interviews, and lessons on authentic living. Her mission is to help others enhance their human experience, living in alignment with their truth.

Nova Scotia, Canada, September 2026. Janice Webber, The Creativity Unblocker and creator of The Creative Reset, has announced a free online masterclass, Come and Take a Break, taking place on September 24, 2026. Created for capable women who find themselves repeatedly thinking, “I need a break,” the event offers participants an opportunity to step away from the constant doing, actually take a break together, and begin exploring a deceptively simple question, I just took a break. "Why do I need another one already?" For many women, taking a break has become the answer to an increasingly familiar feeling. They look forward to the weekend, book the vacation, take an afternoon off, go for a walk, spend time at the beach, read, paint, garden, or simply try to do less for a while. Often, the break works. They feel better. They breathe a little more deeply. Their minds become quieter. They may reconnect with parts of themselves that have been pushed aside by responsibilities, expectations, and the constant demands of everyday life. Then Monday arrives. Within a few days, they may find themselves right back where they started, tired, overwhelmed, and already thinking about the next opportunity to get away. Webber believes that experience deserves more attention. “Taking a break isn’t the problem,” says Webber. “The break may have done exactly what you needed it to do. The more interesting question is why the relief disappeared so quickly after you returned to your everyday life.” An invitation to stop doing for a while Unlike a traditional masterclass filled with information, strategies, and another list of things participants need to do, Come and Take a Break begins with the break itself. Webber wants participants to experience what it feels like to stop, pause, and create some space before trying to understand what may be happening underneath their exhaustion. The masterclass will combine conversation with simple experiences drawn from Webber’s work with stress, movement, and creativity. Participants will have an opportunity to step away from the pressure to perform, accomplish, or fix something and simply notice what happens when they give themselves permission to pause. From there, Webber will begin exploring why someone can take a genuinely restorative break and still find herself depleted again soon afterward. The purpose is not to convince women that they are taking breaks incorrectly or that they need to become better at self-care. Instead, Webber wants to open a different conversation. What is happening between the breaks? When the things you have always handled start taking more out of you Webber created the masterclass particularly for women who still consider themselves capable. They are functioning. They are getting things done. They are managing their work, homes, relationships, businesses, families, and responsibilities. From the outside, there may be little indication that anything has changed. But they can feel the difference. Things they once handled without much thought may require more effort. They may need longer to recover from demanding days. Their concentration may not be as reliable. Creativity may be harder to access. They may find themselves becoming overwhelmed more easily or needing more time alone simply to feel like themselves again. Often, their response is to keep adapting. They reorganize. Push through. Drop something from the schedule. Promise themselves they will rest on the weekend. Take the vacation. Recover enough to start again. Webber says the repeated need for a break can sometimes be useful information rather than simply an inconvenience to overcome. “You can still be incredibly capable and recognize that maintaining that capability is costing you more than it used to,” she says. “That is a conversation I think we need to be having.” More than 30 years exploring stress, the body, and creativity Webber brings more than 30 years of experience as a physiotherapist to her work, along with more than 15 years of teaching Tai Chi and decades of experience as an entrepreneur and artist. Across those different parts of her life and career, she has continually explored the relationship between stress, the body, movement, creativity, and the ability to meet the demands of everyday life. Those experiences eventually led to the development of The Creative Reset, Webber’s experiential approach to helping people move toward greater calm, clearer thinking, creative flow, and sustained capacity. Rather than beginning with another demand for change, The Creative Reset begins by creating space to notice what is actually happening. That philosophy is reflected in the September 24 event. Participants will not be expected to arrive ready to overhaul their lives or leave with another complicated program to implement. They are being invited to begin with something far simpler. Take a break. Notice what changes. Then become curious about what happens when the break is over. A different conversation about taking a break Webber believes there is an important distinction between questioning whether breaks are useful and questioning why their effects sometimes disappear so quickly. A weekend away can be wonderful. A vacation can provide much-needed distance from everyday pressures. An afternoon spent painting, walking, gardening, or sitting beside the ocean can create genuine moments of calm and reconnection. None of that needs to be dismissed. But when someone repeatedly returns from those experiences only to feel depleted again within days, Webber believes there may be value in looking beyond the break itself. That is where the September 24 masterclass will begin. Instead of asking, “How can I take a better break?” participants will be encouraged to consider questions such as what has changed, what they have been carrying, what continually takes energy from them, and why the relief they experience when they step away may be so difficult to sustain once ordinary life resumes. The goal is not to provide a quick answer. It is to create enough space for a different question to emerge. Come and take a break on September 24 Come and Take a Break will take place online on September 24, 2026, and participation is free. The masterclass will be hosted inside Webber’s Creative Reset Circle on Skool, an online community created around her work with stress, creativity, and capacity. Women who have been telling themselves they simply need to make it to the weekend, get through the next deadline, or hold on until their next vacation are especially invited to attend. So are women who have recently taken a break, enjoyed it immensely, and then found themselves wondering why they were exhausted again only a few days later. “You don’t need to arrive knowing what needs to change,” says Webber. “You don’t even need to arrive ready to change anything. Come and take a break. We can start there.” Because perhaps the need for another break is not something to ignore, judge, or push through. Perhaps it is information. Perhaps one of the most useful things you can do is give yourself enough space to notice what it has been trying to tell you. Join Janice Webber inside The Creative Reset Circle on Skool for the free Come and Take a Break online masterclass on September 24, 2026.

21 September 2026 - Applications have opened for the Master’s in Energetic Medicine (M.E.M.) Certification Course, a new 3½-year online and in-person program to train and certify Energy Healing practitioners in multiple traditions, beginning in January 2027. (Continuing Education Credits may be available.) Drawing upon Medical Qi Gong, Egyptian Alchemy and The Way of The Well from pre-Celtic Ireland, the program will offer more than 600 hours of weekly online teaching, guided practice and in-person workshops in the San Francisco Bay Area. Applications are open worldwide until 3 November 2026. Prior experience in energy healing is not required, but applicants should be prepared for sustained practice, personal development, and a passion for healing the self and/or others. At the heart of M.E.M. is the principle that developing the embodied capacity to heal others begins with the practitioner’s own healing. Students will begin with practices developed over centuries and across multiple cultures to clear and resolve their own emotional and physical ailments and traumas; cultivate their own energy and spirit; develop energetic and intuitive perception; and then progress to detailed techniques and clinical protocols for treating specific diseases. Dr. Deirdre Kennedy, one of the three faculty members, hopes the program will help restore Divine Feminine principles to the teaching and practice of energetic medicine. She said: “The Divine Feminine is not exclusive to women. Its restoration brings greater balance, depth and wholeness to both the practitioner and the practice of healing.” Weaving together three healing traditions The curriculum brings together complementary principles and practices from three distinct traditions and follows three stages of practitioner development: Brigid and The Way of the Well in Ireland, Fire of the Hearth, and Lower Dan Tian: foundational principles, purging and clearing, an introduction to Neigong and Divine connections, depth of understanding of the jing wells in the body. Sekhmet and Egyptian Alchemy, Fire of the Forge, and Middle Dan Tian: the Heart Center, energetic cultivation, energetic hygiene and clinical protocols, 7 arrows of Sekhmet. Xi Wangmu and Chinese Medical Qi Gong, Fire of Heaven, and Upper Dan Tian: deeper clearing, Divine Fields, cosmic/heavenly Qi cultivation, clinical protocols and Divine Tools. Online teaching, in-person practice and individual support In addition to full-group, 2-hour online weekly classes and eight four-day in-person workshops occurring semi-annually, students will be supported through faculty-led small-group practice, paired student practice, community chat groups and individual assessments at the end of each year. The faculty includes Dr. Deirdre Kennedy, Dr. Leonard Shen and Dr. Eliza Meeker, three Doctors of Chinese Energetic Medicine with decades of experience across Medical Qi Gong, energetic medicine and Daoist, Buddhist, Christian, Druid and Egyptian spiritual traditions. These faculty members are well recognized authorities, having made multiple presentations at the May 2026 Harvard Medical School conference, “The Science of Tai Chi and Qi Gong as Whole Person Health”, and were featured in the August 2026 National Qi Gong Association global webinar, “Introduction to Medical Qi Gong". The detailed bios for all three faculty members can be found here. In addition, for more background on Medical Qi Gong, one of the three main traditions taught in this course, see the just-released article in Brainz Magazine by faculty member Dr. Leonard Shen. Applications and program information Applications are open from 21 September until 3 November 2026. Successful applicants will be notified no later than 11 November 2026, and the program begins during the week commencing 11 January 2027. Prospective students can review the full program information and application details at Masters in Energetic Medicine Interest – Awakening the Divine. Media contact Dr. Leonard Shen Doctor of Chinese Energetic Medicine and Founder, California Qi Gong 408-421-1738 Email Website

You might know BE Alink as the founder of the Alinker walking bike, but at this gathering, she co-hosts in her capacity as a composer of brain entrainment music. Her composition is a core part of this gathering. During Whale Night, attendees are immersed in the world of whales. Through BE Alink’s composition, “Expanding Into Oneness,” specifically part 7, “There Is No Hell,” attendees go on a deep inner journey, descending to the depths of the ocean and following the calls of the whales. They let go of everything that cannot withstand the pressure of the depths, spending an hour in darkness and encountering the whales through their whole being. It is a full-body experience rather than a rational conversation. Whales: Intelligence beyond the human frame is one of the thresholds of SU We’re living through an extraordinary acceleration of machine intelligence, yet we still tend to define intelligence primarily through ourselves. What if becoming life-centric requires encountering forms of intelligence we cannot immediately translate into human language and resisting the impulse to make them fit our frameworks? The 7th Heart Masters: The initiation – We Engineered the Taking. We Never Engineered the Return. SU (meaning "water" in Turkish): The architecture of return takes place from 8 to 11 October in Ibiza. Leaders, economists, investors, scientists, artists and local custodians come together across four days, moving through three scales: Water within: What happens when demands exceed our capacity to regenerate? The system inside the leader and the system the leader runs are not two systems. Water between: What happens when relationships become extractive rather than reciprocal? The next economy will not become regenerative simply by becoming faster, smarter or more automated. Water of the world: What happens when economic demand exceeds what living systems can regenerate? It has to become better at returning value to the living systems that make value possible. Submit your interest in attending via email at join@regeneratex.co. The architecture The umbrella: From human-centric to life-centric Human-centred design was an important evolution. It moved us past designing only around technology or commercial opportunity, toward understanding human needs. But we’ve reached the limits of that frame. Humans aren’t at the centre of life. We’re inside it. Everybody, businesses and the economy exist within living systems they didn’t create and can’t replace – yet we keep designing as if nature sits outside the economic system, as a resource or externality. Now AI makes this urgent. We're building intelligence faster than we're questioning what it's being asked to serve. AI can make almost any system more powerful, faster, more predictive and more optimized. But if the underlying system is extractive, making it more intelligent doesn't make it regenerative. It may just make extraction more efficient. AI inherits the boundaries we give it. The question driving this next chapter is: What changes when we stop designing around the human as centre and start designing from our participation within life? For Canay Atalay, the founder of Heart Masters, this is also a personal evolution. Her work has moved through several generations of innovation, from technology and community-led models to human-centred design, and now regenerative innovation and economics. Life-centricity feels less like a new innovation methodology and more like a necessary expansion of what we consider part of the system. RX Innovation Institute: Recoding the invisible rules Every system runs on invisible assumptions about value, growth, intelligence and success. Those assumptions become decisions, organizations, economies and eventually physical reality. RX asks: Which codes are no longer fit for life, and what replaces them? The ambition is to move regeneration upstream, not repairing damage after value is created, but redesigning how value is created, circulated and returned in the first place. The regenerative super economy: Engineering the return We engineered the taking. We never engineered the return. Our economies are sophisticated extraction machines, extracting resources, attention, labour, data and capital, then converting and scaling value. But where is the equally sophisticated architecture of return? Can economic activity be designed so that part of the value it creates systematically increases the regenerative capacity of the systems it depends upon? That is the territory we’re calling the Regenerative Super Economy. Why water? Because there is nothing outside of it Water moves through bodies, soil, oceans, economies and generations. The categories we invent – human/nature, private/public, economy/ecology – mean very little to it. What we extract, consume or pollute keeps circulating. There is no real “away.” That’s why water is the first living system through which we want to explore a regenerative economy: If there is no outside, where exactly do our externalities go? Why Ibiza? Ibiza makes the system visible: finite ecological boundaries, extraordinary economic intensity and no rivers. Water, tourism, agriculture, infrastructure and capital are compressed into one place. We’re now collaborating with Aliança per l’Aigua , the Ibiza & Formentera Water Alliance, connecting this work to the reality of the island’s water systems. One of the living cases is Serra Grossa, where extraction currently stands at around 133% of available resources, and both quantitative and chemical status are classified as poor. The work brings together science, monitoring, ecological restoration, citizens, economic actors and participatory governance, with replication beyond one aquifer built into the ambition. It becomes a small, observable laboratory for a much larger question: Listening. Deep listening is one of the first technologies of life-centric innovation. Perhaps before asking how another intelligence can serve us, we need to learn how to be in relationship with intelligence that is not ours. The central movement Human-centric – life-centric. Extraction – circulation – return. Individual – relationship – living system. Intelligence as something we possess – intelligence as something we participate in. The move from human-centric to life-centric won’t be made by one institute, one island or one gathering. It will take entrepreneurs, scientists, investors, artists and custodians willing to redesign the systems they can influence. We’re beginning in Ibiza. With water. Heart Masters SU is the initiation. Aliança per l’Aigua connects us to a real living system. Whale Night asks us to encounter intelligence beyond the human frame. RX Innovation Institute will take what we learn and continue developing the architecture of the Regenerative Super Economy. This is not intended to remain an Ibiza experiment. RX Innovation Institute is inviting entrepreneurs, scientists, investors, artists, technologists and custodians who are already working at the edges of this transition to join us. Bring the system you can influence. Ask what it takes. Ask what it returns. Ask what changes when life itself enters the design. Join RX in recoding innovation for life and building the Regenerative Super Economy, one system at a time. Submit your interest in attending via email at join@regeneratex.co. More on the founder: Canay Atalay More on BE Alink’s composition: The Composition

Written by Vince Morales, Mindset, Identity, Resilience Coach & Leadership Consultant Vince Morales is a mindset, self-image, and resilience coach. In addition, he is skilled in leadership consultation and development. From April 2016 to June 2017, Vince was a homeless veteran in San Diego, California. While homeless, he made a powerful decision to change his thinking and mindset, which led him to pursue life coaching. Imagine a capable professional leaving a meeting after a colleague repeatedly dismisses a concern. The discomfort brings a quick explanation: “I am making too much of this.” Later, a supervisor praises the professional’s work. That experience receives another dismissal: “They would not say that if they knew how uncertain I feel.” In this hypothetical situation, both pain and accomplishment are denied a fair hearing. What happens when that response becomes a familiar way of interpreting life? The idea of self-gaslighting offers one lens for examining this question. Used carefully, it can help us explore how repeated self-invalidation may become entangled with mindset, mental models, identity, and resilience. Used carelessly, it risks turning ordinary uncertainty into another reason to criticize ourselves. Gaslighting conventionally describes psychological manipulation through which someone undermines another person’s confidence in their perceptions, memories or judgment. The National Domestic Violence Hotline (n.d.) describes tactics such as denying events, challenging accurate recollections and minimizing concerns within an abusive relationship.[1] The pattern and context matter. Different memories, uncomfortable feedback and disagreement do not automatically establish gaslighting. Self-gaslighting extends that language inward. Psychologist Ingrid Clayton (2021) describes internalizing another person’s invalidation and continuing it through one’s own inner dialogue.[2] Her account illustrates how disbelief about painful experiences can extend into broader distrust of oneself. It also reminds us that a voice experienced internally may carry messages learned in relationships. Here, self-gaslighting describes a persistent pattern of discrediting one’s own experience, sometimes despite credible reasons to take it seriously. This proposed lens does not equate every instance of self-doubt with gaslighting or imply a diagnosis. It identifies a process to examine without casting someone as a deliberate deceiver or the cause of another person’s mistreatment. A useful distinction concerns how we respond to uncertainty. “I may have misunderstood; let me check” leaves room for evidence. “I always misunderstand; my concern does not deserve consideration” settles the matter before an examination begins. Self-trust can include acknowledging error. It also requires giving your experience a fair opportunity to be understood. Impostor syndrome provides an important comparison. More precisely described as the impostor phenomenon, it involves feeling fraudulent and struggling to internalize accomplishments despite evidence of competence. Clance and Imes (1978) described accomplished women who explained away their achievements and feared being exposed as less capable than others believed.[3] A later systematic review documented impostor feelings across varied populations and noted that impostor syndrome is not a recognized psychiatric diagnosis.[4] The distinction is consequential. Impostor feelings concern perceived fraudulence and difficulty accepting competence. Self-gaslighting, as used here, concerns the broader process of discrediting one’s experience. Someone can feel like an impostor while accurately acknowledging their qualifications. Someone else can dismiss their own distress without questioning their professional competence. Neither experience establishes the other. The overlap becomes relevant when a person repeatedly rejects credible evidence that challenges a belief in their inadequacy. Imagine a manager who attributes every successful project to luck and every setback to personal deficiency. The question becomes whether success is ever permitted to count. Describing that process as self-gaslighting is a conceptual interpretation; impostor research does not establish it as a subtype of self-gaslighting. “When self-doubt needs no evidence but self-belief demands perfection, you are no longer evaluating yourself fairly.” – Vince Morales What rules govern the way we interpret ourselves? For this discussion, mindset means a recurring orientation toward experience. A mental model is an explanation or rule used to understand how situations work. Identity includes beliefs about who we are and how we should act. These working distinctions let us examine different aspects of the same pattern. A person might approach conversations expecting their reactions to be excessive. A mental model could give that expectation a rule: “If someone challenges my concern, I must have misunderstood.” Repeated use of that rule might support an identity belief: “I am someone whose judgment cannot be trusted.” Our proposed connection is reciprocal. Existing beliefs may encourage self-discrediting, while repeated self-discrediting may help keep those beliefs intact. Research on self-verification offers a related foundation. Swann and Read (1981) found that participants sought, elicited and preferentially remembered feedback consistent with their conceptions of themselves.[5] Their work examines ways people sustain a view of themselves; it does not directly test self-gaslighting. Maintaining a conception of oneself is not inherently harmful. The concern is whether a pattern prevents fair consideration of relevant evidence. Consider how this could operate during identity change. A person learning to set reasonable boundaries may feel unfamiliar discomfort and conclude, “This proves I am selfish.” Someone accustomed to providing support may interpret their own need for help as a failure of character. In these hypothetical examples, the familiar identity becomes a standard against which new experiences are judged. There is little room to discover whether the identity itself needs revision. Even an admired identity deserves examination. Calling yourself resilient can support meaningful action. Requiring yourself to remain unaffected by every hardship can make distress difficult to acknowledge. Compassion can guide relationships, while a rule that compassionate people must never feel anger could obscure a legitimate concern. The problem to examine is the demand attached to the identity. Ask which experiences you believe you must dismiss to remain the person you think you should be. That question also matters when deconstructing an old identity. Examining a limiting belief should make room for a more accurate understanding of yourself. It should not require dismissing everything you previously felt or understood. Similarly, constructing a new identity involves testing new choices against experience. Discomfort during that process calls for examination; it does not, by itself, prove that growth is false or that continuing is wise. The environment remains part of the picture. Feenstra et al. (2020) argue that explanations of impostor feelings must account for social and organizational conditions, including exclusion and unequal treatment.[6] That contextual perspective matters here, too. Before advising someone to change their interpretation, examine what is happening around them. Repeatedly being dismissed, working under contradictory expectations or lacking meaningful support should not be reduced to a mindset problem. Changing an internal response does not excuse harmful conduct. For everyday reflection, I suggest a few questions to help examine the pattern: What happened, what did I feel, and what conclusion did I draw? Separate these before deciding what the experience means. Am I using the same standard for evidence of difficulty and evidence of competence? Notice whether one mistake outweighs every accomplishment. What belief about who I must be makes this experience difficult to acknowledge? Consider whether that belief allows ordinary human needs. What evidence could change my conclusion? If no answer could count, examine how you reached the conclusion. What needs attention in the situation itself? Include expectations, relationships, resources and the way others are treating me. Try applying these questions to one recent event. “I felt hurt” describes an emotional experience. “They intended to hurt me” is an interpretation requiring further examination. Both the feeling and the uncertainty can remain present while you consider what happened. The same approach applies to achievement: acknowledge your contribution, recognize assistance and identify remaining skill gaps without erasing any part of the picture. Then choose a proportionate next step. You might clarify an expectation, retain specific performance feedback or discuss a concern with someone who can consider it fairly. Notice evidence of deviation: a moment when you examined an experience instead of automatically dismissing it. That moment does not settle every question about your identity, but it gives you something concrete to review. When the pattern is bound up with abuse or persistent distress, qualified mental health support may be an important part of that process. “The story you tell about yourself should be accountable to the life you are actually living.” – Vince Morales You can take responsibility for your choices while examining whether the standards you apply to yourself are fair. You can acknowledge your limitations and still allow your accomplishments to count. Begin with an experience you have been too quick to dismiss. Give it the attention you would offer someone you respect, and ask what becomes possible when your understanding of yourself is allowed to change. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Vince Morales Vince Morales, Mindset, Identity, Resilience Coach & Leadership Consultant Vince Morales is a mindset, self-image, and resilience coach. In addition, he is skilled in leadership consultation and development. From April 2016 to June 2017, Vince was a homeless veteran in San Diego, California. While homeless, he made a powerful decision to change his thinking and mindset, which led him to pursue professional coaching. He developed his niche in resilience and mindset coaching. The growth of his business ultimately led to the end of his homelessness. Vince is the founder of Validus Coaching and Consulting, formerly Zoe Transformation. His story has been featured in online articles and news outlets across the U.S. He is a certified John Maxwell Team Coach, Trainer, and Speaker, as well as a motivational speaker. In 2021, Vince earned his master’s degree in Psychology of Leadership from Penn State University and recently completed a second master’s degree in Executive Coaching and Consulting from the Townsend Institute at Concordia University Irvine. He is a 2020 inductee of the National Society of Leadership and Success, a 2021 and 2023 Brainz 500 Global Award recipient, a 2022 SUCCESS Magazine 125 honoree, and the 2024 IAOTP Top Coach and Consultant of the Year. References: [1] National Domestic Violence Hotline. (n.d.). What is gaslighting? [2] Clayton, I. (2021, September 10). What is self-gaslighting? Psychology Today. [3] Clance, P. R., & Imes, S. A. (1978). The impostor phenomenon in high-achieving women: Dynamics and therapeutic intervention. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, 15(3), 241–247. [4] Bravata, D. M., Watts, S. A., Keefer, A. L., Madhusudhan, D. K., Taylor, K. T., Clark, D. M., Nelson, R. S., Cokley, K. O., & Hagg, H. K. (2020). Prevalence, predictors, and treatment of impostor syndrome: A systematic review. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 35, 1252–1275. [5] Swann, W. B., Jr., & Read, S. J. (1981). Self-verification processes: How we sustain our self-conceptions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 17(4), 351–372. [6] Feenstra, S., Begeny, C. T., Ryan, M. K., Rink, F. A., Stoker, J. I., & Jordan, J. (2020). Contextualizing the impostor “syndrome.” Frontiers in Psychology, 11, Article 575024.

Written by Jackie Anderson, Yoga Teacher, Healer & Studio Owner Jackie Anderson is the founder of Kula Yoga Studios and an experienced yoga educator, teacher trainer, and retreat leader. With more than 20 years in the wellness industry, she uses yoga, mindfulness, and nervous system reset to help others facilitate change and tap into their higher self. Kula is often translated as community, family or a gathering of people connected by a shared purpose. To me, it means even more. Kula is the understanding that none of us heals, grows or awakens entirely alone. We become who we are in relationship with one another. That is why the motto of Kula Yoga is Be the Change. It is not simply a phrase for a shirt, a wall or a social media post. It is a responsibility. The change we want in our families, our communities and our world has to begin within us. The mirror comes first It is easy to identify what everyone else needs to change. We see another person's ego, defensiveness, selfishness or lack of awareness clearly. We can spend years waiting for someone else to apologize, grow or understand us. But yoga keeps turning the mirror back toward the self. The mirror is not punishment. It is power. If the problem is always outside of us, then we are helpless. The moment we become willing to see our own patterns, we regain the ability to participate in change. Looking in the mirror means asking difficult questions. Where am I contributing to the division I say I want to heal? Where am I demanding grace while withholding it from someone else? Where am I repeating a story because it protects me from responsibility? What am I unwilling to see because seeing it would require me to change? Removing the story Near the end of Chapter 9 in Revolution of the Soul, Seane Corn expands a teaching she received as a young woman into a spiritual progression: move beyond the story and see the soul; see the soul and recognize yourself; know yourself and come to know God; know God and become love; and through love, find liberation. That teaching has stayed with me because our stories are powerful. They help us make meaning of our lives, but they can also become walls. We create stories about who is right and who is wrong, who belongs and who does not, who hurt us and why we are justified in staying guarded. Some of those stories hold real pain and should never be dismissed. Seeing the soul does not mean excusing abuse, ignoring injustice or abandoning boundaries. It means refusing to reduce a human being, including ourselves, to the worst thing they have done or the narrowest story we can tell about them. When we loosen our grip on the story, we make room to see the soul. When we see the soul in another person, we may recognize something of ourselves: the same fear, longing, tenderness and desire to be loved. That recognition does not erase accountability. It allows accountability to exist without dehumanization. Community is a practice A true kula is not a group of people who always agree. It is not a space without discomfort, conflict or mistakes. Community becomes meaningful when people are willing to remain present, tell the truth, listen, repair and grow. We often speak about holding space for others. Sometimes holding space looks soft and quiet. Sometimes it looks like an honest conversation. Sometimes it means setting a boundary. Sometimes it means admitting that our impact did not match our intention. Love is not always agreement, and compassion is not the absence of accountability. Kula asks us to resist the idea that personal transformation is only personal. Every pattern we heal changes the way we parent, partner, teach, lead and serve. Every time we interrupt a harmful reaction, we create a different experience for the person in front of us. Inner work moves outward. Be the change is the essence of yoga Yoga is union, but union begins with integration. We cannot create peace around us while refusing to meet the conflict within us. We cannot ask the world to be more compassionate while speaking to ourselves with cruelty. We cannot demand honesty from others while protecting our own illusions. To be the change is to stop waiting for a perfect leader, teacher, partner or circumstance. It is choosing to embody what we say we value, especially when it is inconvenient. If we want more kindness, we practice kindness. If we want truth, we become more truthful. If we want forgiveness, we examine where we are still withholding it. If we want unity, we notice the ways we continue to create separation. This does not happen once. The ego returns. Old wounds get activated. We become reactive, defensive or afraid. The practice is not about never losing our center. The practice is recognizing when we have left it and finding our way back with greater awareness. Love is the way through When we remove the layers of story, we begin to see the soul. When we see the soul, we recognize ourselves in one another. For me, this is where we begin to understand God, not as something distant, but as the living presence that connects us. To know that presence is to become more capable of love. Love does not make us passive. It makes us responsible. Love asks us to speak, act, serve and repair. It asks us to remain human while remembering the humanity of others. Love is not the reward at the end of the practice. Love is the practice. This is Kula. This is Be the Change. We look in the mirror, not because everything is our fault, but because our own consciousness is where our power begins. We do the work within ourselves, and then we bring that work into the room, the family, the community and the world. The change begins with us. It always has. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Jackie Anderson Jackie Anderson, Yoga Teacher, Healer & Studio Owner Jackie Anderson has more than 20 years in the wellness industry. She leads yoga teacher training programs ranging from 200 to 300 hours and worldwide retreats, while also running and teaching at three yoga studios she founded in 2011. Jackie's main mission is teaching others the foundations and principles of yoga to help them catapult into the best version of themselves. She's authentic, honest, and walks life with laughter, grace, and love. Source note: This passage paraphrases Seane Corn's teaching at the end of Chapter 9 in Revolution of the Soul.