Welcome to my kitchen sink. This might take a while.

In our household, my husband is responsible for the dishes, both the dirty and the clean.  So the kitchen sink is his domain.  He’s trained the rest of us to just throw whatever we’ve used in there, and then, later, almost as if by magic, he will transform the catch all container into an empty, shiny stainless steel sink, just waiting to fulfill it’s intended purpose all over again.

My mind and my computer have been serving a similar purpose for my writing.  I’ve been tossing notes into e-mail messages, sent to myself from wherever I happen to be when inspiration strikes. I’ve sent myself short-hand entries written from the treadmill.  I’ve tapped out thoughts that are only partially formed and saved them in Groove on my work computer.  I’ve noticed myself composing journal entries in my mind while showering.

This morning, immediately upon waking up, I was aware of an intense, profound, and almost overpowering sensation.

I need to write today.

I must write today.

So here I am.  I’m sitting in Borders, when my original plan for the day was to primarily focus on the task of creating 1099s on behalf of my beloved clients.  (Don’t worry, dear clients. I’ll still be getting them done, later today or tomorrow. You can always depend on me to get done whatever it is I’ve said I’ll be doing for you.)

As I drove here, I was thinking of my current approach to writing and how it’s going to make for a very long and multi-chapter entry today.  It’s quite similar to the way I spent four incredible hours on Thursday night, engaged in conversation and intense discussion with a new friend who I was meeting in person for the very first time.

That night Nadene and I spent four hours talking without even noticing that time was flying by. We covered volumes of our pasts, topics from our present day lives, and we even visioned into our futures with hope and aspiration.  That night reminds me of this journal entry… vast, deep, and wide.

I’ve also noticed that one of my best friends in the whole world (who also happens to be named Jessica) and I do the very same thing with our phone conversations.  It’s as though we’ve got a little buffer in the back of our minds that just queues up whatever we might need or want to be discussing with one another, and then, when we get on the phone, everything I need to share and review with her comes into my conscious mind, flowing with ease and grace.

Hours later, we both realize it’s super late and past our bedtimes.  But we’re fulfilled, having opened our hearts, releasing what was on (or buried within) our minds, and having a renewed perspective on our lives.  Talking with Jessica often allows me to teach myself something I’ve already learned on an unconscious but deeply transformative level.  (She is such a blessing. Truly. A friend who leaves you feeling uplifted, alive, and full of joy is a gift to be treasured.)

This journal is also my friend.  She waits for me to share, to divulge, to reveal.  And I come to her, brimming with contemplative thoughts, an introspective desire, and a need to be seen and heard.

Times, in the past, when I’ve felt this feeling, this almost overpowering drive to sit down and write, I’ve often set it aside.  I’ve bottled it up or shoved it down, pushed it back deep into my mind or backed it into a corner somewhere within, keeping it stuffed inside.  (And that feeling has often requested a weekend, a whole isolated and uninterrupted weekend, or better yet, a whole week, to begin, really begin, to write her book… so yes, someday.)

But today, I’m making the time.  I’m making space.

It may not be a whole day, or a weekend.  But it’s something.  It’s enough.

For after yesterday’s coupling of vivid reminders that Divine timing is always in effect, I’m not willing to try to take control of what’s welled up within me.  I’m here. Now. To write.

I may say more than you can bear to read in one sitting.  So be it.  A little voice within me wisely reminds: “This is your remembering place, so speak as you wish, as long as you need.”

So, where to begin?

What’s top of mind, at hand in my heart?

Yesterday, the timeline of my day, which to my judgmental mind appeared to be far off course and significantly behind, grabbed ahold of me and helped me to really remember that G-d puts us exactly where we are meant to be.

It all began with a dream.  A strange, three-part, oddly concocted dream scene.  A dream that didn’t want to let hold of me when it was time to wake up and rise for the day.  So I started my day “late.”

Then, as she cut my hair, my sister-in-law and I fell deep into a discussion about all manner of things, taking a winding path into the past and arriving upon a story I’ve told countless times about the most challenging decision I’ve ever made in my life, and when I realized she’d never been an audience to the telling of that recounting, I couldn’t just get quiet and head on my way.

So we talked longer than I had planned and my schedule fell even further by the wayside.

I then drove, hemming and hawing about the sequence of events for the remainder of my day.  I placed, like concrete blocks, the day’s remaining fixed events with unchangeable start times, into my mind’s eye.  I tried to think through the best possible plan.  I got aggravated and anxious.  I pulled over on the highway.  I drove on.

I checked in with myself, asking, If I could have any one thing in this moment, what would it be? A smoothie.  I took the next exit and pulled into the mall parking garage.

Then I dropped into my heart, did some Reiki on myself, and meditated for a few minutes. Clear Guidance arrived and I was on my way.  As the day went on, I started to see the signs.

The timing of my visit and Reiki treatment with my Hospice patient simply could not have been more aligned with her needs.  I was exactly where I was supposed to be, in the right place at the right time.  I stayed much longer than I had planned, because my sense of time disappeared and my heart guided me to do whatever I could to help her for as long as it took.

And then, left hand upon the steering wheel, as I answered my mother’s incoming call on my iPhone, a most profound sign of Divine timing unfolded before me on the interstate. The next 15 minutes unfolded in half-speed-time.

As the first responder at a pretty bad car crash, I held the hands of an immobilized and distressed young man named Kyle, while sending him healing vibes and speaking words of calm and conscious connection.  Released by the EMTs, whose arrival speed was deemed quite expedient as I took note of the incoming call log time on my phone and only then realized that I’d been by Kyle’s side not more than 9 minutes, I took deep breaths in my driver’s seat and then safely continued on my way home.

Yes, my plans for the afternoon were irreversibly changed, as time simply wouldn’t allow for all my pre-planned activities and tasks.

But I knew, deep in the core of my bones and through all the caverns of my heart, that I had been, twice, in the right place at the right time.  And for that, I am grateful, appreciative, and aware.

Ahhhh.  The beauty of life and all that transpires.  It is available to us, to each of us, in every instant… if only we pause and admire.

Today is my overdue pause.  My moment to make up for the lack of attention I’ve been paying to the whispers, the wind of wonder, the wild, awesome, and Divine that has been weaved through my life over the past few weeks (or has it been months?).

I truly feel blessed.  I am often aware, wide-eyed aware, of how incredible my life truly is. And I often feel incredibly called to transform that awareness into words.  Words created by tapping these fingers upon these keys… words that form upon the screen in front of me, the reflection of my hands and chest and heart glistening in between me and the text I comprise…

And yet, the roles of my life, they are many and all of them are so dear to me.  And over these past few months I’ve been directing my intention and attention upon my roles, my relationships, and my interactions; both internal and external.  I’ve been dancing a delicate but whole-hearted dance with time and what’s most important in each moment.

I’ve been blessed with the incredible intensity of falling in love with my spouse, all over again.  I spent a session with my Reiki Master Teacher, releasing old blocks from my past that were holding me back from being fully present with the one person who knows me best, knows all aspects of me, myself… often times better than even I.

In celebrating ten years together, Michael and I have covered much ground together. We’ve learned and re-learned the other.  We’ve grown, changed, evolved, merged and diverged, yet we’ve always remained together.  I’m in awe of the man that he is and his presence in my life was, far too often, being overlooked.

I hope that I’ve been successful in changing that, over these past few months.  I feel that I have been and I will continue to strive to show him how much I do love him, with every ounce of my entire soul and being.

What else has been going on?  I best pause to review my notes, the ones that call to me when I’m in a semi-asleep state, asking when they can come out to play…

Oh, yes.  This one likes to dance around and replay itself in my mind at night time.

Two weeks ago, I found myself on the treadmill.

It was the sensational combination of movement and music, Swandiving with Ani DiFranco, while pushing my body to physical highs and swimming in the accompanying spiritual climbs…

It was the 16 minute miles and a 160+ heart rate, connecting me to my core…

It was listening to Lori McKenna, praying in a newly physical way, letting my mind run wild…

I had this incredible experience of Body… Body… Mind… Spirit

Ground up…

Music and motion

Blending me, love, life, body, mind, spirit, soul

And I could visually see it…

Some shifts take place energetically in an instant… and it’s just the physical world manifestation of that shift that takes a bit longer…

My Remembering Place is who I am.  Heart Based Bookkeeping is what I do.

I’ve been feeling driven by this realization to re-work the webpages of this site, and I will. When time allows.  But today, this story that’s been waiting in the wings just wants to be seen.  She wants to be shared.  Even though it feels like words can never quite convey what happened that day.

The transformation on the treadmill.

It’s quite appealing and inviting.  That’s why, I believe, I keep going back.  Again, and again. Finding myself in the music and movement.  It’s like electricity for my soul.

And so, over the past two weeks, I’ve been gradually digesting this nugget of inspired wisdom… this conceptual realignment of my way of being and seeing my work, my writing, my actions in this life.

My Remembering Place is what I’ve learned and am currently learning… Heart Based Bookkeeping is the container for the offers, both practical and spiritual, both heart and science, that I’ve created to do my purposeful work here on our amazing planet.

Heart Based Bookkeeping is not the only way I help… as I do raise my children, offer love and support to my family and loved ones, volunteer in Hospice, and I even provide Reiki and Guidance to anyone who inquires or is in my presence and needing such… But Heart Based Bookkeeping is my income-generating business and My Remembering Place is just me, it’s me in written words and stories shared from the heart.

My Remembering Place is me, being and sharing.  Heart Based Bookkeeping is me, working and helping.

And a great spaciousness opens up, there, in this conceptuality.  I can breathe in this reality.  I feel good.  I feel whole.  I feel empowered and strong and useful.  I feel true to my inner world and my calling and my desire to fully show up and offer all that I have to whomever needs me.

And I’m amazed at how much self-healing I’ve experienced in the past two weeks.  It still never ceases to amaze me that these two things are absolute truth:

– Blessings can come disguised as disasters, crises, bad news, problems, and even horrible tragedies

– Guidance can come in unexpected ways, through other people, and even through one single sentence spoken by someone else

I’ve also learned that I can help myself in the very way that I help others.  I just have to drop the effort of trying to observe what’s happening while it’s happening.

Wow. There’s so much depth, for me, in these three observations.  I feel like these are three huge lessons I’ve learned (or re-learned) over the past two weeks.  So I want to explore them, free form, right here, right now.

Where to start…

Blessings can come disguised as disasters, crises, bad news, problems, and even horrible tragedies

My reminders and re-teachers of this lesson came in the form of two events that both transpired on January 15.

In calculating my estimated tax payment for the final quarter of 2009, I was shocked to discover that a combination of the loss of our mortgage deduction and my best year in business ever meant having to more than double what I had been planning on paying in for my final payment of 2009’s estimated taxes.

At first, I felt sick.  I couldn’t believe I had to cut checks that big.  But then I was reminded of something my dear friend Lisa Hunter had said to me earlier in the week… I’ll paraphrase her comment and our conversation: It’s best to pay out money that is not truly yours to begin with, in order to make space in your bank account for what’s coming in next.

Yes, I started to shift the sick feeling into something good.  I have more than enough money in the bank to make these payments and I’ll still have a lot left after the checks clear!  I started to celebrate the fact that I had the money to make the payments.  And then I really took notice of this fact: 2009 was my best year in business, ever.  Actually 2009 was a year in which I made more of an income than I ever have, period.

That was something to celebrate!  Something to feel really great about!

And then we came home from a night out at the movies to discover that the entire lower level of our home was flooded.

The financial and functional implications of the flood became rapidly apparent. Thankfully, the financial component was quickly limited to the maximum of a $500 insurance deductible, so I began breathing again.

And as the carpets started to dry and the lower quarter of most walls were torn out, it became vividly apparent to me that this disaster? It was a huge blessing in disguise, and not only for the originally revealed reason.

It wasn’t just the mold that would be remediated and removed from our living environment, the mold that my Guidance had been telling me was there, imperceptible to our eyes, but detected by my sense of smell, for months.

It wasn’t just the opportunity to review yet another money event that was accompanied by a major water event in our home, although the observation of that pervasive pattern did lead to the next blessing that would come from the flood of our office and playroom (and second bathroom and Michael’s hobby room and so on)…

It was the Guidance that came in an unexpected way, through other people, and even through one single sentence spoken by someone else.

This awful event led to the teacher of my meditation class saying something to me that led me to help myself in the way that I have already been able to help so many others.

It led to the unfolding of the wrapper that I’d so thoroughly, constructively, and instinctively created around a deeply held belief I have had about money and making money.

I found myself, in the space in which I work with my own clients, and although I wasn’t able to help myself with quite as much Grace and ease as I help others, I was actually able to work though it.  I was able to see my own pattern, make space for the intense emotions that came up, and start to shift, and then pivot.

It may have taken me a little bit longer to help myself than it normally takes me to help others, but that’s to be understood, considering I’ve been trying, for years, to make sure that whenever I work on my own issues, I stay aware enough to capture what I’m doing that works so that I can help others in that way too.

I don’t quite know if it was a Divine awareness that the very next day I would be blown away by my own abilities to help others that allowed this space to open up in me, or if it was simply necessary for the following day to happen as it did.

But I broke down fortress walls within and let my anger bubble, boil, and overflow.  I sat beside my husband and shared memories, painful and previously buried feelings about money and making money and hard work.

I went into my bedroom, crawled into my bed, and stayed in the fetal position, almost as if I was in a cocoon.

I let the movie in my mind play back words that had been spoken, decisions that had been made, approaches that had been determined to be the best course of action, and all that I felt along with those experiences.

I got really upset and angry and realized I needed to use Remembrance to allow myself to feel exactly how I feel… forget telling a story, just go into the feeling/emotion exactly as it is and meet myself where I’m at with this, right now.

I let myself feel angry that I’ve been putting in years and years and YEARS of hard work… really hard work, and yet I still don’t have enough money.

I faced my belief that making money is hard work.

I faced my belief that the only way I’ll ever make enough is to work hard and harder and MAKE IT HAPPEN.

And then this huge space opened up and I realized that money doesn’t have to come from hard work.  That seeking joy in my work and doing what I love is bringing me money.

That I’ve arrived in a space where I love my work, I am not having to work hard, and the money is coming.  I can stop telling myself the old story, holding that old belief, that self-limiting, joy-lacking story.

I let it go.

I healed.

And the next day, I helped three people in an amazing way.  I blew myself away with my own abilities.  I witnessed myself helping others more profoundly than I’d even thought possible.

I blossomed.

I then received the following in an e-mail from Jessie Marianiello, one of my first Intuitive Money Session clients.

When it comes to money, I feel vulnerable.  For a long time I’ve been wishing I could find someone to help me untangle my finances and gain clarity around my current situation. I am a full time artist with a thriving business and yet–when it came to money–I felt scared, ignorant, overwhelmed, and downright stuck.

Let me begin by saying that Jessica has been one of the biggest gifts that I have received in a long, long time.  From our very first email correspondence, I knew that Jessica was the bookkeeper I had been wishing for.  Little did I know that I would be getting soooo much more than just a bookkeeper!

In reading the words in that first email (and all that followed), I felt a tidal wave of relief.  Finally, someone who gets me!  Never in my whole life has someone put me at such ease–and I immediately found myself able to see a new and very wonderful light at the end of an otherwise dark tunnel.

To be honest, my experience in working with Jessica is impossible to sum up.  Why?  Because Jessica is much more incredible than words can possibly convey.  She not only understands the magic of numbers, but is a truly gifted healer as well.

After just one Intuitive Money Session with Jessica, I was blown away by the things that came up during our call.  Talk about diving in head first!  And yet I felt completely safe.

Our conversation touched on things that I may have already known on an intellectual level, but Jessica’s intuitive insight took me further into those thoughts and feelings than I have ever traveled before.  She helped me cut to the core of something that greatly mattered to me. In the process, I experienced a deep and necessary shift.

I laughed, I cried and, most importantly, I walked away from our session feeling a profound sense of love—for my work, myself, my past, my future.  I wasn’t expecting such…immenseness.  The healing I experienced went much deeper than money.

I only hope that Jessica fully realizes how grateful I am for sharing her incredibly multifaceted gifts.  She is made up of 100% heart, 100% authenticity, and a million percent amazing.  I look forward to continued work with her.   Jessica’s presence in my life is an absolute blessing beyond measure!

I’ll never know, quite for certain, what came first – my self-healing or my helping others.

But today, as I sit here in Borders, writing this novel of a journal entry, I know this to be true: I have helped myself in the way that I help others and I have healed.

I allowed myself to drop the fear that in order to help others with their money stuck I had to completely heal my own money issues first and, almost magically, those two events culminated within hours of one another.

I’m certain that I’ll face new money issues in my life, and re-face old money issues that come up again in the future, but I feel, today, as though I’m empowered, enabled, and so incredibly blessed by this gift I have uncovered and begun to share with the world.

This is me, who I am, how I help, and what I do.

I’ve unlocked the door to my own prosperity and I’m helping others to do the same.

For me, it takes hearing things and experiencing things in a way that resonates within me for real healing to happen. I’ve heard the saying do what you love and the money will follow a hundred times. I’ve read thousands of books, I’ve educated myself, and I spent years working hard. I thought I’d let go of old, unhelpful beliefs, but I hadn’t. Even so, I had stepped into doing work that I love.

And yet, I felt stuck.  I felt like I was in my own way and not making as much money as I could. According to Martha Beck, if you feel stuck in some area of your life, it’s because contradictory beliefs are competing for control of your behavior.

Over the past two weeks, I have uncovered my own contradictory beliefs and released my stuck through the gifts, beauty, and wisdom of these two spiritual truths:

- Blessings can come disguised as disasters, crises, bad news, problems, and even horrible tragedies

– Guidance can come in unexpected ways, through other people, and even through one single sentence spoken by someone else

And I now see that what someone said to me the other day is completely true and, for me, has always been true:

We get paid more for who we really are than who we think we are.

Yet, I get to sit here today, in this amazing moment, knowing who I am really am.  I’m sure I’ll forever be getting to know my true self and learning who I really am, over and over again.  But today, in this moment, I feel closer to knowing my real self than I ever have before.

I am a girl who has had money problems and been stuck and scared and afraid that my story would always be one of not having enough.

I am also a girl who is now telling a different story, the story in which I am the girl who has healed and is healing.  The girl who has helped and is helping, helping others to overcome their money stuck with Grace, Guidance, ease, and joy!

I am thankful, joyful, blessed, and full of gratitude.  I thank The Divine for the challenges, the problems, and the opportunities.  (Amen.)

God: I love that story, Noah and the Ark. You know, a lot of people miss the point of that story. They think it’s about God’s wrath and anger. They love it when God gets angry.
Joan: What is the story about, then? The ark?
God: Well, I think it’s a love story about believing in each other. You know, the animals showed up in pairs. They stood by each other, side by side, just like Noah and his family. Everybody entered the ark side by side.
Joan: But my husband says God told him to do it. What do you do with that?
God: Sounds like an opportunity. Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, do you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If they pray for courage, does God give them courage, or does he give them opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for their family to be closer, you think God zaps them with warm, fuzzy feelings? Or does he give them opportunities to love each other?
Well, I got to run. A lot of people to serve. Enjoy.

– from Evan Almighty