Calling all Brides...let's take a ride!

Bridal Bonding Boot Camp
We do not remember days...
We remember moments.
(Cesare Paverse)

Bridal Bonding Boot Camp in an informal weekly meeting of brides to be. Getting married is one of the most important decision you will make in your life. It is a time filled with love, excitement, anticipation, and joy. However, preparing for your wedding day is a very busy time of planning, appointments, setting goals and decision making. This can be exhausting and stressful. It is normal to feel both exhilarated and overwhelmed at the same time. AND IT’S ALL OK!

Bridal Bonding Boot Camp is a service that provides the time for you to get back to you. YOU are your first and last love. BBBC wants to support you with specific tools, techniques and exercises that will guide you through this process. Most importantly we want you to have FUN! This is an opportunity for you to meet other women who are experiencing the same feelings, fears and questions you are having. New friendships will be formed and fellowship to be had. Wouldn’t it be great to have another friendly future bride to call when your freaking out and want anonymity from friends and family. These relationships are proven to be quality enhancing both before your wedding day and after you say I do!

The primary purpose of these meetings are to provide you with creative, fun and meaningful ways to bring your emotions to a safe and nonjudgemental place. To give yourself a specific time in your week to relax, explore topics of love, commitment, sex, family, your man, anxiety, diet, exercise and whatever your needs may be so that you are prepared to have the wedding that you want and deserve. We will lay down a strong foundation for you to be effective in planning your wedding sanely and prepare you with tools to have a successful, loving, committed marriage.

Through specialized life coaching skills and mind/body exercises you will achieve your goals. Using creative art therapy techniques such as movement, journaling, and improvisational exercises combined with meditation, guided visualization, ritual and conventional sharing you will be empowered, refreshed, relaxed and prepared for that sacred moment of union that you will share with you fiancee, families and friends. These are your moments, take the time to honor yourself and gracefully transform into your new future.

TREE HUGGER

I believe we need to hug trees more for what they give us than what we give them. I tune into the energy, texture and anything else that comes up inside me. I also think about the tree. The who, what, where, when, how and why. I offer up a prayer of thanks. I have done this unconsciously for myself as healing work.
I just left Kripalu up in the Berkshire Mountains. I did a fast there about five months after my father died. I made him a tree. He is a Spruce. The FIRST thing I do every time I go is stop the car, get out and hug/pray/experience that tree and always sit with it during my stay. I mentioned it to a guest of the fast this week who just lost three family members in 18 months and was a mess. She came back and told me she found three trees together that are now her family.

Mary’s dad at Kripalu, Massachusetts

Mary Gulivindala is the owner of Blue Print Life & Wellness Coaching. She is also a dancer, mother of two boys, a dog and a cat. She is a firm believer of “you are your first and last love.”
For more information, please visit: www.blueprintlife-wellnesscoaching.com

The Glass is not Half Full or Half Empty, it is Just Too Big

We all know the expression the glass is either half full or half empty. It is used as a question to gage how a person views a situation, whether they see it as positive or negative. It is about a persons perspective. Well I see the glass as just too big.

Life has become extremely busy and at times overwhelming. With work, add in a commute time, family, add in an aging parent or sick one, children and their schedules plus the wonderful but consuming technology ie. Email, Google, Facebook, Linkeden and Twitter if you choose to use social networking, you will see or feel that there are not enough hours in a day to do what is required let alone have the luxuries of down time, hobbies and a social life.

I'm tired just thinking about it now! So how can you simplify your life?

There are the usual solutions:

Better time management – take away a couple hours of sleeping

Write down a to do list – which if your like me put too many tasks down a day that don't get accomplished and them move them to the next day. By weeks end I have a list longer of the things I didn't do than did.

Prioritize – Do I take the dog for a walk or put down paper?

Delegate – Unless you can pay an assistant, the only people I can delegate to are my kids and they are too young to drive, go to the market, or use the oven.

The reality is you can't do it alone or do it as well as you want without sacrifices your health, sanity or self esteem. That is why I like being a life coach, to assist you in moving forward in your life as smoothly as possible. I guide you to live in the solution. When a client comes to me with a goal or goals they want to achieve, they don't have the availability to take the time to sit down, strategize, research and assess how to reach their goals in a timely stress free manner, or the resources I do. Taking time out of their day to do those things would just add to their already hectic lives.

Enter stage left...me. I access, articulate, make a list of action steps to do and guide my clients successfully to their goal in a timely manner, dependent upon how willing and committed the client is to do the work. IT'S ONE LESS THING FOR THEM TO PUT ON THEIR TO DO LIST... YEA!!! It is now on mine.

This is not to say that I tell you what to do, you are involved in the process because you are the process and the answers lie within you. My job is to keep you moving forward and accountable to yourself and encourage you to think in different ways than you might normally. I will get your creative juices going, and you do have them, think outside the box and inspire you in ways that you didn't know lived within you.

One step at a time we will get to your destination.

You Take My Breath Away

When you look my way
My heart beats stronger
My passion longs for you
I can wait no longer
You take my breath away

In those quiet moments
When you whisper my name
Safely in your embrace
I desire to remain
You take my breath away

When I’m in the dark
I shutter in dismay
Your my shinning light
Your the sunshine in my day
You take my breath away

In your eyes that twinkle
Brown soulful wise and true
There is no other man
That holds a candle to you
You take my breath away

I am grateful... And breathless


July 1, 2011

TREASURE CHEST

TREASURE CHEST

I used to have a treasure chest with silver, diamonds and gold
Garnets, pearls, rubies, emeralds, beauty to behold
Glittering, shinny, full of jewels, security I would know
I held on tight with all my might a soul I would not show

Security it promised me alluring and addictive
Open the chest and I could rest poverty was restricted
These treasures I did not gain alone a partner was included
Yet life swept in and crumbled him he bowed out and excluded

The valuables of wealth and worth possessions that were rare
The world confirmed my treasure chest, not many could compare
So happily my outside gleamed with falsity so common
The family crest with name confessed tattooed it with our omen

Perceived as good but not for long the Pirate came and took it
Defeating and depleting me I felt my life was ruined
Years went by and I would cry destitute my future
Stripped away those shinny days life was all confusion

I could not find the treasure map to take me back to past
Suffering with lessons learned, pain I would outlast
Anxious, scarred, all alone I only knew despair
Til Truth stepped in revealed my sins my soul needed repair

A new box I would build alone all wood and nails were mine
Not an easy task to do it took a lot of time
Years and years of humbling truths old life stripped away
Slowly as each nail was nailed kneeling down I prayed

What is precious, valuable, possessions of true worth
Slowly being reminded of what I was taught from birth
The outside things the golden rings are only a delusion
Feeling trapped, hijacked, collapsed explained the confusion

A Carpenter did come my way bringing me true treasures
Not the worldly type of life always seeking pleasure
Go within the secret place their you'll find the key
to a honest treasure chest, a real one trust in Me

Gratitude, new attitude, acceptance stop delaying
Faith, family, friends so dear, they are worth displaying
Honor, love, integrity, forgiveness, wisdom, hope
To polish these is practice see while learning how to cope

The treasures in my chest aren’t things their qualities and actions
Patience meeting preparation authentically transacting
Gentleness, love, loyalty to me first I must learn
To give my jewels to all the fools no more they’d have to earn

Humor is a special gem I use it all the time
One of my closest playmates it saves me from my mind
Self-respect, confidence, persistence to endure
A path set out without a doubt, joy it will ensure

My treasure chest is still growing because it is alive
Not dead with all those static things my treasures reach and strive
Monetary gains they’re not, my needs they are supplied
It baffles me, it’s trust in He that I keep getting by

The world may see oh poverty because they live the lies
Witness wonder, trust, contentment, things that all should try
Faith and risk to take a chance on things that I can’t see
But in my heart, my mind and soul I live in Victory

THE LIMB OF MY TREE

There is a limb, a branch of a tree
The limb that I speak of is humbly me
This limb is a branch that grows from a tree
A tree strong and ancient, wisdom of family

The roots of this tree started centuries ago
With a people I know not, but still my roots grow
Embeded in them, my ancestry
My kinfolk, who were they, their reflection is me

My parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents paved
A way to my talents, characteristics, DNA
Heredity is given in genes of history
A road paved with hardship, storytelling and mystery

My limb is attached to the branch of my parents
My Mother and Father taught me their talents
My Father his poetry, song and dance
His showmanship, love of books, and the ability perchance

To dream big, no regrets, no guts or no glory
Passionate good or bad, always the real story
From humble beginnings he worked his way up
To educate himself, his kids, he supported us

My Mother so humble the salt of the earth
This metaphor from Jesus her salt it did birth
A faith unshakable there’s no doubting commitment
Don’t debate, keep the faith, God’s love is sufficient

Our family she stayed, raised and praised
Always present, working hard, pretending nothing to it
Never a complaint, a curse never uttered
A better role model, sorry there is no other

Their branch is attached to the trunk of the tree
Their parents, grand parents exclaimed a decree
Work hard every day, laugh and love our own way
They traveled the pond to create a new day

A new world they came too with courage in hand
No money, or people a new foreign land
The times they did struggle but kept to their plan
And made a success, never waived took command

Laughter and hardship and death they did face
So courage and bravery adventure and faith
The trunk of this tree has deep strong roots
We are rooted in God, He is the Truth

He is the Vine we are the branches
A lesson I’ve learned or I couldn’t be planted
All that before has trickled down to my limb
I cling on to stay strong to keep fixed on Him

This tree is still growing because it has twigs
My boys, they live on, they are light their my kids
To watch them and nurture the souls that they are
To witness our history in them they’ll go far

To continue to grow and one day they’ll know
I will tell them the stories of our ancestry so
One day I will see in them part of me
My prayer is they know love and laughter, our tree

Expectation of Relations

To have expectations of a certain relation defined by my imagination leads to the creation of frustration, the power of my flirtations takes a hit, and it’s baffling. Yes, my ego.

This relationship is not a partnership because his fingertips grips my hips, thighs and lips...yes my heart skips, slips and trips into a pit. Resentment.

Seduction is destruction and obstruction to “MY” goal to control, body and soul, convincing myself and him our love is part of the celestial pole. In actuality it’s a cosmic joke. HAHAHA, I’m laughing...not.

Yes we love, laugh and linger, whisper I love you and continue to spend part-time time together me pretending it’s forever, he is more honest than me. He’s a man, does the same definition of love live in man land?

To have peace I must surrender to his gender or “him” or I will continue on this bender, I can’t bear to be a defender or contender to self-deception, my skin is too thin.

So the calamity of my sanity is to live in the solution which is the annoyance of consenting. Acceptance is the answer, the key to an untroubled reality, because God holds the key to what His Will is for me will be.

And it’s not easy trying to buy oranges at a hardware store.

To be continued... See I still haven’t changed and I can keep signing up for pain. Just because I’m enlightened to the situation doesn’t mean I will change, damn aint that a shame?

Greif

The heavy weight of grief is pressing down
The gray cloud lingers in my head and heart
Heaviness is a chore I carry now
Weary to the bone my friend no more

Death is a rite of passage to be honored
Reason intelligence and wit understand
Heart and soul feel like an empty canyon
I look for her but I am here alone

Tis better to love and lose than not to love
Every ounce of pain and sadness I do hold
Wiser warmer loving and alive
Because my friend did not leave me alone

Every step feels like I walk in quick sand
Pull me down swallow me up just drown
Temporary sorrow mourning despair
Soldier on and breathe in fresh new air

Beyond this moment that is an illusion
Heaven waits for self but not today
Life is for the living not the dying
Carry on to brighter better days

Phoenix

Like a phoenix that rises up from the ash
I have been given a second chance Born again
Not only a second but a third, forth and fifth
And my God will forgive me up until the end

My life had been spinning darkly out of control
Hit and run crashes but ego still bold
Invincible not convincible I was young not old
With glamour and money and riches of gold

Inside I was lying and dying so cold
My Spirit was wounded my soul had been sold
Seeking and searching down paths for relief
No rescue was present until I fell off my feet

Hit my knees hard to the floor I cried and pleaded
God help me I need You, who are You, I’m defeated
I lay in a lump crushed crying and broken
Pain was so great my mind was exploding

Then little by little God whispered to me
My child I love you please come follow me
Surrender came quickly I was sick of my way
The white flag was thrown in I was to know Yahweh

Born again I was, I new not what was in store
But I was willing and open and hungry for more
That first date with Jesus was like nothing before
No chanting or meditating had opened this door

I dye to self again and again
When I take my will back I’m a crazed madman
Insanity and demons are waiting and lurking
But I have Jehovah His chain their not jerking

No weapon formed against me will prosper
Who shall separate me from the love of Christ
If God is for me who can be against me
Promises of His love, faithfulness and eternal life

Sleighing dragons slaughtering demons they are still after me
Stronger than before cause they know that I’m free
Of their stronghold and lies I combat with God’s Word
The Bible my blueprint my praises are heard

Jesus told me the path would be narrow not easy
It’s hard there’s temptation a slick road to hell
I visited hell recently when I lost my way
The price that I paid be my final farewell

God is faithful He waited and stayed
Right by my side until I turned back His way
Like the phoenix that rises out of the ash
Through the fire once again I resurrected Amen

Boys To Men

Trying to raise boys into men
No time to put paper with pen

Sitting on the dock of the bay
As my sons’ flip flop floats away

Earlier this morning the same bay took our kite
I surrender to this bay and choose to not fight

I’m reminded just how small that I am
I learn this lesson again and again

Just keeping it simple like this poem is my plan
While raising my boys as they grow into men.