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Letter From The Editor

 

It has been a wet, rainy winter here in So. California.  As we move through February, the warming weather reminds me that Spring is coming.  The darkness of winter is fading away as the dawn of spring begins its glow.  The cycles of nature remind us of the cycles in our lives.  Even as winter gives way to spring, night to day, so too our lives cycle and change. 

 

When we are faced with doubt and fear storms in our life, these can be seen as the winter storms that rage across the land.  When we’re in the middle of such a storm, all we can see is the storm and how dreadful it is.  The winds of doubt blow fiercely and we fight to keep our equilibrium.  The snow or rain of fear lashes down on us, obscuring our vision.  The storm may seem to go on without end.  But all storms end, even our doubt and fear storms. 

 

Just as the winter storms bring the gift of precious water and cleansing to the earth, so too can our doubt and fear storms.  They can bring us the blessing of knowing and understanding ourselves better from the manner in which we weathered them.  The way we choose to face the challenges of the storm teaches us much about ourselves.  It can give us the opportunity to see deep within ourselves and find strengths and abilities we may not have known we had.  Just as the winter storms leave behind a crystal clear sky, so too our storms can leave behind a crystal clarity about what we doubted and feared.  It can bring the clarity of knowing and of trust and confidence. 

 

I know this to be truth.  I know the storms we go through may seem harsh and never-ending.  But I also know they DO come to an end.  And there is clarity, a clear sky, on the other side.  Spring does follow winter and brings with it new beginnings and new ideas sprouting in us. 

 

This past winter I went through my own doubt and fear storms – brutal and bruising.  I wanted to quit.  But I continued facing each challenge, each storm, and in the process I found my deeper strengths and abilities.  My winter is coming to a close.  The storms seem to have past leaving behind the crystal clarity of my vision and purpose. 

 

You may be going through your own doubt and fear storms, especially in the current economic climate.  It may seem like your life circumstances are battering and bruising you.  But there is hope.  As the saying goes, “this too shall pass” and it will. 

 

The cycles of nature assure us of the truth that all things cycle and change.  February is a good time to remember this truth; it is the transition period between winter and spring.  It isn’t quite spring yet, but winter is loosing its grip.  In the northern climates the daffodils, crocus and hyacinths are beginning to peek out through the snow.  This time of year brings us the promise of spring.  The days are getting longer and the sun warmer. 

 

The promise of spring and the ending of the winter storms in your life is here for you.  Let the light of Love and Hope shine on you, melting away the snow of doubt and fear.  Spring is coming!

 

Wishing you a bright, clear spring,

 

Tora Moon

The Thrival Guide™

New Guidance Programs!

 

Last month I mentioned my new clarity of focus.  I’ve been busy producing several new Women In Thrival™ Guidance programs for women’s Self-Empowerment for both your business and your personal lives.  Additional details are available on the website.  If you are interested in any of these, email or call me for pricing, dates, and times.  I gratefully accept and appreciate your referral to anyone you know who might be interested in these programs.

 

Women In Thrival™:  Business Thrival Guidance™ Programs:  

 

I have had nearly 20 years of experience as a CPA and 12 years as a Chief Financial Officer.  My specialty and love is working with entrepreneurs, small business owners, and start-ups, especially women and women owned businesses.  I’ve worked with both private and public companies.  I understand the needs of the entrepreneur and self-employed, working at home, alternative healing practitioners, Spiritual practitioners, wellness and spiritual centers, and women in business.

 

The Business Success Model™ includes 3 “legs” for a business to succeed:  1) a good product and/or service, 2) good marketing, and 3) good business processes and management.  If any of these are weak, or worse, not present altogether, then the business struggles to survive and won’t be able to move into thrival.  Many businesses, especially small businesses and start-ups, concentrate their time, energy, and resources on the first two “legs” of this model: product and/or service and marketing.  They neglect the business management side of the equation.  The business management “leg” includes the infrastructure and systems of the business, the financial and accounting system, AND the personnel managing or running the business.  All of these have to be established and functioning.  As a Business Guidance Coach™, I work with you on the third leg, the business management. 

 

The Business Thrival Guidance™ Programs available are:

 

• Women In Thrival™:  Building a Strong, Stable House:  Setting Up and Running a New Business or Practice™.  This is a 9-week course with 3 modules:

• The Foundation:  The Vision and Form of the business or practice

• The Walls:  The Financial Structure

• The Roof:  The Systems

This course is currently available as a live class held in Orange County, CA.  A teleclass is forthcoming. 

 

• Women In Thrival™:  Business Thrival Monthly Guidance Program:  Empower Yourself - Empower Your Business™.  This is an on-going monthly program for established businesses, graduates of the Building a Strong, Stable House Program, and anyone interested in starting a business.  It consists of a monthly teleclass and discussion materials of exercises, questions, and additional discussion notes.   The main focus is on the business management “leg” of the Business Success Model™.  

 

• Women In Thrival™:  Business Guidance Consulting:  Private one-on-one sessions with me to analyze YOUR business and guide you on the best business practices for you.  This can include helping you set up your accounting system on QuickBooks™ and/or quarterly reviews of your accounting and business. 

 

Women In Thrival™:  Personal Thrival Guidance™ Programs:

 

As The Thrival Guide ™ my programs are designed to Guide, Inspire, and Encourage women’s self-empowerment using the Principles of Thrival and connecting to the Divine Feminine.  My passionate purpose is the Self-Empowerment of Women and therefore my programs are currently for women only. 

 

The Personal Thrival Guidance™ Programs available are:

 

• Women In Thrival™:  Empower Yourself - Empower Your Life Monthly Guidance™ Program.  This is an on-going program using the principles of Thrival and how to empower yourself and your life.  As most of us are involved in some way with business, each session will cover how the topic applies to you both personally and in your business life.  This program consists of a monthly teleclass and discussion materials of exercises, questions, and additional discussion notes. 

 

• Women In Thrival™:  Personal Thrival Guidance™.  This is one-on-one guidance to move you into Thrival where your individual needs are addressed.  This is more than just life coaching.  We will also weave in the principles of Thrival to bring you more into Thrival in all areas of your life.   These sessions are normally 30 minutes and can be either in person or by phone.   

 

                     

In honor of Valentine’s Day and the focus of love in February, I’m sharing with you the important concept of Loving Yourself.  If we haven’t found our love for ourselves, it is difficult to love another.

 

Loving Yourself

Loving yourself is an aspect of being whole and complete and in inner integrity.  One of the most important things you can do for you is for you to love, accept and approve of yourself.  When you do this, it allows others to love you as well.  It attracts the people who can and will love you as you really are, unconditionally.  Until you find your own acceptance, no one can love and accept you.  Even when they want to, because your door to receive it is closed and locked tight.  The image I see is a very thick oak door, with multiple locks on it, and a nice big beam across it.  You know the one from all the castle movies, the one where it takes a battering ram and 50 brutish men to open it. 

 

I know this from experience.  It took me well into my adulthood to finally come to a place of loving myself.  I clearly remember as a teenager, looking into the mirror and repeating over and over, “I hate you.  I hate you.”  Talk about negative reinforcement and affirmation!  Not only did I think it and believe it, I spoke it out loud, to an image of myself.  And I did it many, many times.  I’ve always hated self-assessments.  When asked what were my good qualities or what I liked about myself, I truthfully couldn’t find one thing.  I was taught not to brag about myself, which didn’t help.  I felt that if I said anything good about myself or what I liked, I was bragging.  My self-hatred fed into this belief quite nicely.  If I didn’t have anything good to say about myself, then I could never be accused of bragging or worse, being arrogant.  And this led into another belief I’ve had to overcome; because I had nothing good in me, I had nothing good to say.  I was taught if you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say it.  I took this to heart, and therefore, didn’t say anything.  I remember being in grade school, around 4^th grade thinking this, so I started young.  Everyone thought I was shy, an introvert.  When in fact, I really just hated myself, saw the “monster” in myself and tried to keep everyone else from seeing it.

 

When was the critical turning point for me to start loving myself?

 

In April 2001, I bought a book on mudras.  In brief, a mudra is an aspect of yoga, where the energy is held with hand gestures.  In the book was a mudra for love.  I knew I needed love in my love, so I started doing the mudra.  In November 2001, I added the Sanskrit mantra (or chant): “Om Hraum Mitraya Namaha”, which roughly translates to “may the light of love and friendship shine through me attracting noble companionship” and affirmations.  I also did the “giving yourself permission” mudra, part of which was I gave myself permission to love, honor, and accept myself.

 

At about the same time, I started doing holodynamic work with Dr. Warren.  Holodynamics is a process where you can connect to the consciousness of your “holodynes” or limiting beliefs or past situations and transform them.  Part of the process is to find the blessings and gifts in everything that has happened in your life.  In each holodynamic clearing and transformation that occurred my heart was opened up.  I started to get glimmerings of liking myself, even loving myself.  However, the turning point was when I was finally able to see and perceive my “full potential”, my Inner Being, and to consciously work with her and invite her into my life.  In the introduction, I gave you a meditation to connect with your Inner Being.  It took me several months of working with Dr. Warren, trying to connect to my Inner Being before I could finally get an image.  It took so long, I began to wonder if I even had one!  Then one day, I opened up, and there She was – glorious and beautiful, shining brightly.  She had all the qualities I wished I had.  I began to desire to BE my full potential.  I began to allow myself to be this awesome person I always wanted to be – or knew somewhere in the darkness that I was.  I wrote down the qualities and attributes of my “full potential” that I desired and made them into affirmations.  Saying the affirmations helped me to acknowledge them in myself.  I began to act and feel like I had the qualities of my “full potential”.  (We’ll talk more about the power the affirmations in Chapter 11).

 

Then one day a year later, I realized with certainty and clarity that I loved myself and that I loved my body.  I was doing my affirmations, along with the mudra and mantra when I felt the sure knowledge that, “Yes, I love myself!”  It was not an affirmation or a wish, but a statement of truth.  Since then, I have had moments of self-doubt, but even when hit with the darkest depression, I have never again felt the self-hatred.

 

Feeling self-love, I feel centered, at peace, serene, and tranquil.  Love fills my entire being and radiates from me.  Loving myself gives me room to accept, love, and honor other people.  I can allow them to be who they are and love them as they are.  I can also love them for who I know they can be.  Loving myself opens the doors to allow others to love me as well.  In this state of being, the love flows freely between me and the other person.  We become connected by mutual love and respect.  It’s like a tube is attached to my heart on one end and their heart on the other, but it isn’t a solid tube, more like a thread or cord, and love flows along the cord.  Each person is filled with love, serenity, and joy of being in the presence of the other.  When this is experienced it is not a one-sided affair.  Both parties tend to comment on feeling connected to each other and the love and joy that is felt from that connection.  I hear and say quite often now, “I am so blessed that you are part of my life.”  This comes from that connection to the other person which is based in loving myself.

 

I didn’t find my self-love just by myself.  I did have some help. 

 

We feel we are alone when we are disconnected from ourselves.  Our continued disconnection leads to self-hatred and loathing, anger and frustration follows, depression can also result.  Because we then become focused on these thoughts and feelings we attract even more of them and people to accentuate them.  It becomes a habit – a vicious circle or cycle in our lives.  But it can be broken and the wheel turned in the opposite direction.  At first, very little change is seen as the momentum is stopped and started the other way.  But gradually, little glimmers of feeling good about ourselves flash in our lives.  We begin to attract people and events that support us in learning to love ourselves.  For me, two people in particular have helped me tremendously in turning the wheel from hate to love; Dr. Warren and my friend, Sharlin.

 

Dr. Warren helped in giving me the tools to use to see the old patterns that no longer worked and transforming them into ones of growth and positive energy.  His loving, non-judgmental, supportive – even sometimes brute honesty – helped me learn to like, love and approve of myself.  He was a shining example of what I desired to be and brought out those qualities in myself.  By his example, I said, “Universe, I like this.  Bring me more like him,” and it did and continually does.  Most of the people coming into my life are good, kind, loving, gentle people.  I realized this was true even when I had a car accident.  The highway patrolman who responded to the car accident fell into this type of person.  He was in my life for a brief moment, but he was an affirmation and validation of my positive, loving energy.  I could see him and say to myself, “See what I’m attracting?  Isn’t it wonderful?”  I know more and more of the same continues to flow into my life.  It fills me with joy.  It helps me to continue to focus on being a loving, positive being because I like attracting wonderful positive people into my life. 

 

The second person to help me was Sharlin.  She helped me come to love myself by loving and supporting me just as I am.  She saw the good in me and encouraged me to be the best I could be and to be more than I think I am.  She believes in me and believes me to be a wonderful person.  She helped me to see the awesomeness of myself and to believe in my goodness and love.  Her unconditional love helped me to love myself.  I am so grateful for her love, friendship and presence in my life.  My life is much better because she is a part of it.  We’ve now been friends for over 10 years.  It’s one of the longest friendships I’ve had in my adult life.  I believe this is because our friendship is based on mutual love and respect.  (We have a mutual adoration society!)

 

Transformational Prayers

Love

I've developed a method which transforms your life, bringing to you such qualities as Trust, Stillness, and Abundance.  I call this method, Transformational Prayers.  This method engages the mind, incorporates visioning, feeling, alignment of energy, affirmations, and the power of sound.  It activates all 3 of the steps of the Law of Attraction; clarity, attention, and allowance.  It aligns our energy with the aspects we desire to bring into our lives with focused intention.  This will transform your life.

Each month I share with you a mudra and mantra set for you to try.  If you want to experience them more, they are included on my forthcoming CD Transformational Prayers, which includes a booklet of descriptions along with full-color pictures of the mudra and the mantra.  The music of the mantras is beautiful, full of interesting instruments and percussion.  Each piece is different.

 To pre-order your CD click here.

This month, the Transformational Prayer I’m sharing with you is Love.  We need to find love for ourselves as well as for other people.  This meditation and prayer will help you connect to the love of yourself and let it spread to others. 

 

Love

Love begins and ends with the love of Self.  We must learn to love and adore ourselves before we can expand that love to others.  In opening up our heart to the most important person in the world – ourselves – we open our heart to Spirit.  We are an aspect of Spirit and Spirit is reflected in us.  As we begin to acknowledge our love for ourselves, this loving energy becomes very attractive.  We become a magnet for others of a like energy to flow to us – new friendships and relationships that are healthy, full of love, laughter and joy can be ours.  In loving and adoring ourselves, and others, it needs to be with full acceptance of us, just as we are right now.  Not how we wish to be, or how we wish others to be.  But just as we are.  We all change, and our love can expand to include the changes in ourselves and others.  We all have the capacity for great love.  As our hearts open to loving ourselves, they expand exponentially to include friends, family, loved ones, our pets, people we meet, and the beauty of all that is in the world.

 

The goal of our growing love of ourselves is to find the place of adoration of the beauty that is us.  To adore means to worship as divine; to love greatly or honor highly.  As we are Divine; an aspect of the Divine, it is right and fitting that we should find the place where we can adore ourselves, and begin to adore those around us.

Curl your middle and ring fingers of both hands down to touch your palms.  Extend the other fingers as straight as possible.  (This is also the American Sign Language symbol for love.)  Lift your arms with the elbows bent until the elbows are shoulder height, forming a nice straight line with your chest.  (If you get tired, you can rest the back of your hands on your knees or in your lap, but keep the hand position.)

 

This mudra opens up the heart chakra allowing more love to flow through it.  Like the breath, love flows in and out, a continuous cycle of receiving and giving.  The fingers act like antennae that connects to Divine love and draws it down into your heart.

Mantra

 

Om Hraum Mitraya Namaha (OHM HA-ROOM MEE-TRAH-YAH NAH-MA-HA)  May the light of love and friendship shine through me drawing noble companionship.

{Click here for sample}

This mantra reminds us that love starts within us and with love for ourselves.  This loving energy is very attractive and draws others of a like energy to us.

Sample Affirmations

I am love.

I love, accept, and approve of myself just as I am.

I love and adore myself.

I am loved and supported by Spirit.

I attract wonderful, loving people, friends, and situations into my life.

I love and accept others just as they are.

I love and accept my body, just as it is.