I realized the other day, that it’s been 10 years since I gave my first public reading at The Tattered Cover book store.  I’d just self-published This Time I Dance! Creating the Work You Love.

Yes, that’s me lying on the boxes of books I’d printed—nervous, excited, innocent and proud.  I’d worked sporadically and doggedly on this book for 12 years before printing it myself, putting it into the world.  I had no idea that just a few months later the powerhouse New York publisher Tarcher/Penguin was going to discover my book, buy it and publish it in hard cover, then soft cover, and then a new edition of soft cover.  Let’s just say this book has had a lot of covers. 

Here’s what I’ve learned in the 10 years since This Time I Dance! made its debut at its first real book store.

10 years goes by supersonic  fast. 

To be honest, I thought I’d be so much further along.  I thought I’d be buying a summer house near Bill Gates and sipping skim milk cappuccinos with Oprah often, you know, while we painted each other’s toenails.  In other words, I thought I’d be more intimate with wealth and fame. 

Then again, I didn’t realize I’d be this far along. 

I am more at peace READ MORE + COMMENT

(Hey, if you wander away from reading this, don’t miss my invitation at the end!)

 Do you long to find your true place in this world? Then don’t just look for a job. Look for your diamonds. 

Trying to figure out your calling or career based on what you see “out there?” Please don’t design yourself around the existing, dying, passing world. Worship your interests. Hone your gifts. Slide into your mission, even when your mission doesn’t have a name, a business card, or a previous place in history. The world will flock to love. The world will design itself around genius. It always has. It always will. Purity radiates value and vibration and compels attention. 

The aliveness in you is the next iteration of what is needed in the world.

Living your dreams isn’t about fitting in to the known world. It’s about fitting in to your skin. Once you start accepting who you are and what you want to give, you can’t help but shine. Shine-- and the world will fall over its feet to make a place for you. Nothing is holding you back. There is a path within you, a sacred cord, a blueprint, a code. This isn’t wishful thinking. This isn’t a parlor game. This is what you came here for. The steps emerge when you stop needing to see them in order to accept what you know.

Go ahead READ MORE + COMMENT

“Talk only about your desires.  What you focus on, you strengthen.”  I often give these instructions in my Unleash Your Calling workshops.  But of course, on weeknights, with my best girlfriend, when no one is paying me, and the moon hangs low, I allow myself to whine.  Well, just a little.

But the other night, I did the exercise I often assign in workshops.  I told my friend to keep me talking about what I loved, and not let me interrupt myself with why I thought I couldn’t have it.  She did her job and I did mine.  I spoke aloud my latest desires, dreams, and excitement for 8 minutes straight.  I did not say, “But I don’t know how to make it happen.”  I did not say “Of course, it’s unrealistic to want this to just fall into my lap like this.”  I did not focus on my past and former disappointments or the fact that I have dated men that have been locked up-- so how could I think I know what to want?READ MORE + COMMENT

This new year, why not do it?  Don’t just rearrange the furniture in your life or lose weight.  Lose the weight in your life.  Do something you love.  Love changes everything.  Want the best year of your life?  Then follow a tour guide that’s on fire.  Get out of your mind and into your passion.  Get affected. It’s where you long to go and where you belong. This year, follow your heart-- instead of your head. 

Most of us have been taught that it’s “safer and more practical” to listen to our heads instead of our hearts.  I’ll tell you otherwise. 

The mind makes rational decisions based on history.  The heart connects to something mystical and dynamic.  As we enter changing times in the world,READ MORE + COMMENT

Since it’s the holiday season, I wanted to write about “light.”

The wisdom tradition of A Course in Miracles, teaches us, “I am the light of the world. That is my only function. That is why I am here.”When I first read that line part of me stood at attention as though its true name had been called through a fog and cobweb of centuries. The other part of me felt screwed.

At the time, I looked around at my life of half-written manifestos, unused yoga videos, and abrupt tectonic shifts of doubt and fear, and thought humanity could definitely benefit from a more reliable guide. But I have come to see that limitation is spirit calling my name. Limitation puts pins in my sofa and lumps in my pillow so that I do not fall asleep in my life. Limitation calls me to seek for strength, focus, achievement, and liberating powers I did not know I had. And, in the end, limitation gifts me with a one-of-a-kind credential in this world. It’s because as I come to experience freedom in the midst of defeated circumstances, I become a hope and light to others.READ MORE + COMMENT

Geez, I don’t have a picture of my kids in red velvet.  Maybe because I don’t have kids.  (And I’m Jewish.)  So I can’t write about soccer practice or how someone I gave birth to won the Nobel Peace Prize—and how’s your family doing?

So how do you capture a year?  For me, I cherish moments.  (You might want to do this with your year, too.  Or, I don’t know you, you might have Oscar winners!)

I am going to write about two moments from this year, as they seem to be the ones that clamor for my attention.  And they’re the kind of moments that not only happen once in a year, but once in a lifetime. 

Before I do, I just want to pay homage to so much else that defined this year.

I’ve done a lot of public speaking in 2011, speaking at New Thought churches and keynoting at impressively cool conferences!  I am still in awe that I have something to say, and that I don’t faint or do some crazy Touretts Syndrome thing-- where I scream profanities from the stage or bark or mewl at the audience.  

I’ve grown READ MORE + COMMENT

Sometimes things don’t work out or things fall through-- because your dance card is already full.  You just don’t know it’s full.

I’m someone who fills up her time, I confess.  Blank space makes me nervous. Don’t get me wrong.  I love freedom.  I love the long country road it promises. But the urban me kicks in, bites her nails, and pushes for engagement. Productive me starts worrying and assigning minutes, worrying we won’t get things done, extract the most glory, make things count. 

But sometimes I find the best use of my time-- is to have some time.

Time without every corner crammed with plans, activities, people, ambitions, and deadlines.  Free time without a movie or a yoga class.  Some time to be.  To breathe in AND exhale.  To discover abiding possibilities, just past the fear of boredom.  A chance for the Universe to slide in and say, “May I have this dance?”

I recently went to NYC.  I always have much to do, many people I want to see. But on this last visit, I didn’t have the energy to set things up.  I knew I should check in with friends, but I didn’t feel motivated.  Part of me felt bad about this, like wasting food. 

But I found out—again—that because I had the space, READ MORE + COMMENT

Some of you may be celebrating this Thanksgiving with warmth, laughter, hugs, turkey and pumpkin pie.  Some of you may feel stranded, like the marble that rolled away from the group, stuck with the dust bunnies in outer space, abandoned under some old furniture. 

And some of you may feel stranded in broad daylight, surrounded by people, feeling invisible, or worse yet, as visible and broken as a car wreck on the side of the road, strangers gathering to gawk at the shattered glass. 

For many, the holidays can bring up discomfort.  They can be some weird checkpoint in life--where you find yourself comparing your entire life to the fantasies you have in your head of how your cousin, neighbor, or sister-in-law is pulling it off.  Let me tell you something, no one is pulling this off.  No one is spared challenge or confusion in this life.  Everyone, consciously or not, is seeking to find peace, comfort and communion with their own soul. 

Anyway, I don't know about you, but in holidays past, I've had the feeling of standing in some bad, funky, psychodrama, and feeling as though my head is a big pink balloon floating away from my neck and onto the ceiling.  And that's before I touched the alcohol.  There are those easy breezy questions people ask, stuffing celery sticks and chips into their mouth.  "So what you doing these days?" they ask, and you stand there paralyzed, thinking to yourself, "Well, if I knew what I was doing, do you really think I'd have 200 self-help books, a coach, a therapist, a Vedic astrologer, and a medium?" READ MORE + COMMENT

Finding your passion isn’t like finding your keys.

It’s not a one- time event.  It’s not a concrete task.  Rotate tires.  Pick up skim milk.  Find passion.  Touch the face of God.  Check.

It’s a way of thinking.  A series of affirming decisions.  A vibration.  It’s a way of committing to yourself in your lifetime--- consistently making subtle, yet spectacular choices that allow the floodgates of joy to open into your life.  It’s a way of leaving the anchor, the fear, and the mundane behind. 

Get intimate with yourself again.  Learn who you really are and the power you hold.
Finding your passion… and living it… is all about inviting yourself to the party-- and discovering a version of yourself who has been waiting for you all along.

And speaking of invitations, I’m just a tad bit of wildly excited because I have a new program to offer that does not involve you getting on a plane to see me or spending thousands or even hundreds of dollars.

In fact, I’m writing to you now, because I’m offering a $100.00 discount if you sign up in the next few days.  (With this discount, this month long program will cost less than one individual coaching session with me.)

I’m launching my Passion Finder Group Coaching Program: Unleash Your Calling , a month long program that begins (February 2nd 2012) LIVE with me-- in your living room.  Let’s do this together.  I want to support you weekly in changing the way you think and act---and create some lasting, life-changing, extraordinary experiences in your life.  There will be breakthrough dynamic  teaching conversations, passionate assignments, guided meditations, soul-powered strategies, group interaction, energy and co-creative magic, and of course individual question and answers galore.  It’s all recorded, too, so if you miss a week, you don’t miss a beat. It’s going to be FUN--- and ridiculously effective.

You can accomplish more than you could ever imagine…with the right encouragement and support.

Isn’t it time?

I hope you’ll reserve your space now, take advantage of the discount, and start riding the wave of knowing you’ve made this commitment to yourself. There is no substitute for not living your dreams. There is no greater security.

I’m talking about less than $200.00 to spend a month with me and the creative, intelligent, soul searching- go for it tribe—who are already lining up for this program.

Find out more Here:

http://www.awakeningartistry.com/pdf/PassionFinder-Feb2012.pdf

And now we resume our regularly scheduled life. But only for a little bit…

With my love and blessings,

Tama

P.S. If you’ve taken a program with me in the past, this is a great way to re-ignite the energy.  You already know how it feels to be inspired, alive, and supported—and what that can do for you in your life!

P.P.S. Know a friend or loved one who could benefit from this program?  Sign them up with you…and take another $25.00 off!! (type it into the Notes Field of the shopping cart and we’ll apply the discount)

©2011 Tama J. Kieves. All rights reserved
Tama J. Kieves has been featured on Oprah Radio and is the bestselling author of This Time I Dance! Create the Work You Love.  She is a sought-after speaker and career coach who has helped thousands worldwide discover and live their true work in the world.  Sign up at ThisTimeIDance.com to receive the free monthly email newsletter with Tama’s latest articles (and events).  For daily inspiration, continuous support & great group conversation, join Tama on Facebook and Twitter.

It was great to be in New York City (my original hometown) recently. I wanted to share 4 of my moments with you.

Moment #1: At Best Buy in Union Square

I watched two teenagers in Best Buy.  One looked like she had Down’s syndrome, and the boy looked slow or mentally delayed.  They had head phones but the music was on so loud it sprayed out into the aisles.  They were dancing in the store with wild, exaggerated, sloppy joy.  In their presence, it wasn’t a Thursday or a trip to an electronics store.  I felt glee.  I felt electricity.  I felt the moment tear me open.  I could feel the beat of the music, the exuberance of the Universe, as they moved and let out peals of obvious laughter.  They had no edges.  Goodness was real here.

Moment #2: Somewhere on 9th Street in the East Village

Later I was in an offbeat, expensive boutique on 9th Street in the East Village.  “So she’s trying to give me this $100.00 bill for it and I tell her, lady, that’s not a real bill,” says the man behind the counter.  An intense woman with dark glasses nods her head.  She says, “You got to be smart.  You got to be careful.”  He’s loudly recounting how he dodged getting stuck with counterfeit money.  He was “no fool.”  He was “too smart for that shit.”  New York memories come flooding back to me.  It’s the New York City battle cry, the anthem hummed in secret places.  You won’t pull one over on me.  I am suspicious.  I am alert.  I am smart.  I am on edge.  I am no fool.  I am a New Yorker.  This attitude is hard to shake when you’re daring to live a life of your dreams, daring to trust in big unseen powers.  I think back to the dancers at Best Buy.  They were not smart.  They were free.

Moment #3: At Penguin Publishing 375 Hudson St.

I stood in the halls of Penguin publishing, eyeing the glass cases lined with bestsellers.  I want to paw them, but stop myself.  “Every one of these people had a dream,” I tell myself.READ MORE + COMMENT

The other day I taught an “Inspired Success Boot Camp” workshop which is all about taking your life’s work to the next level.  Part of the training of “inspired success” is paying attention to where you feel “Alive” in your work, and where you start losing confidence.  A young woman, I’ll call Mandy, asked a question—for all of us.

Mandy talked about her new floral business.  She shared, “I look at the websites of other florists to see what they’re doing, and I end up feeling bad.  They have so many great pictures of their arrangements, and I don’t. Then my energy crashes,” she said.  The room filled with writers, coaches, nutritionists, therapists, and other entrepreneurs of every size and shape groaned in agreement.  We’d hit a universal problem.  

Whoa baby, I know all about what I’ll call the “compare –if- you- dare syndrome.”  It’s not pretty.  I looked at what other coaches were doing.  I’d swim in their websites and get lost.  As I marveled at all their marketing, I’d get funky.  Pretty soon I’d be just about to order their grand package and everything they had.  Some days I thought maybe I should just get it over with and recommend all my clients to them, because clearly they had better programs.  It was then I’d realize, that maybe I’d gotten a bit distracted.

So here’s my Inspired Success Tip: Don’t look at your Peers, look at your People.  The more you focus on “your people,” the audience you serve, the tribe (even of one) you have reached, the more you build your passion.  The more you engage your passion, the more you find your voice.  The more you find your voice, you find your brand.READ MORE + COMMENT

As a national career coach, people often tell me, “I just wish I knew what I wanted to do.”  I don’t believe them.  I believe they want to know what they want to do-- as long as it pays 100K a year and looks “appropriate,” like maybe becoming a brain surgeon for John Hopkins.

They don’t want to know that what they really want to do is drive a red convertible up the coast of Spain.  Or take pictures of magpies.  Study Reiki.  Or sleep till noon and observe the stars at night.

Sometimes it’s a bitch to know.  As an attorney, I ran away from my office and flew to a beach in Santa Cruz.  I watched gray waves crash.  I crashed.  I knew what I did not want to know.

I knew I had to leave my law firm.  I knew I would die if I ignored the part of me that wanted to write—and didn’t know how to make a living.  I didn’t want to know this.  I bargained with myself, but the negotiations were over.  The poet had stormed out of the room, out of “playing nice.”  She had waited long enough.  She had suffered through conference room meetings and evenings in sterile law libraries.  She had missed too many day hikes in the Rocky Mountains.  She had left too many journals blank.

On that beach, I heard a voice within that said, “You know you want to write.  And now you know you know.  You may ignore this wisdom, but you will be back here years later, and you will know you knew.”

It’s like finding out your boyfriend is lying to you.READ MORE + COMMENT

I was embarrassed by what I love.

I wanted a cool spirituality.  I wanted to say I was a Zen Buddhist, and everyone would look at me like I was an athlete, knowing I could count my breaths, swim long distance in impermanence and not get sentimental and soppy with prayer or neediness.  I’d talk about “being mindful” and people would look at me like I was a rock climber or a black diamond skier.  I could even ride on the media friendly cache of the Dalai Lama.

But no, I had to be drawn to a personal insanely loving God or Universe.  I fell in love with A Course in Miracles, something some say is “channeled” or “contains the voice of Jesus” and I still cringe, 21 years later, maybe the Jew in me feeling the need to daven or the Harvard lawyer burying her face in Nietzsche.  I’m not proud of my reaction.  And I’m not proud of my attraction.  I’m just sharing the mud, because I believe many of us have conflicted feelings about what we believe.  Or what we want in life.  Or who we love.  Our truth, often makes us squirm.  Sometimes the soul isn’t acceptable to the ego.

It’s worth the squirm.  It’s worth going past your image into your identity.  It’s worth expanding your possibilities.  It’s worth taking a left turn off a dirt road that isn’t on the grid.  It’s worth shedding conditioning and even some sanction.  It’s worth trading in familiarity for vitality.

You won’t lose anything--once you find yourself.

©2011 Tama J. Kieves. All rights reserved
Tama J. Kieves has been featured on Oprah Radio and is the bestselling author of This Time I Dance! Create the Work You Love.  She is a sought-after speaker and career coach who has helped thousands worldwide discover and live their true work in the world.  Sign up at ThisTimeIDance.com to receive the free monthly email newsletter with Tama’s latest articles (and events).  For daily inspiration, continuous support & great group conversation, join Tama on Facebook and Twitter.

“I’m desperate to find my calling,” said a man at a recent workshop.  Then he handed me a list of requirements, kind of like a scroll.

I only want to work 3 days a week.  I want to work in something creative and I will only work on a Mac.  I want to have variety in my assignments, beads, whistles and dancing girls, or else I’ll get bored.  I need to be able to travel.  I want to be able to take my Pit Bull to work with me.  I want to work within bicycle distance of my house.  I want to work for people born under the sign of Gemini.  I want these people to engage me, because I really don’t know what I want to do.  And I won’t work for less than $150,000.00 a year.  You get the idea.  The list went on.  I swear, it may have been a bit more specific.

I mentioned this phenomenon to a coaching friend of mine.  She raised an eyebrow then said, “I guess he didn’t read the part in This Time I Dance! Create the Work You Love where you talked about what you’d do for the work you love: ‘I would have crossed the desert in the summer time with only a Twinkie in my pocket, crooning with gratitude.’”

No, I said.  I’m not sure this gentleman would walk across plush wall-to-wall carpet in his living room for his calling-- much less the Mohave.

This young man had a butterfly net the size of a polka dot for catching his dreams.
Where are you making your lists of demands upon the Universe?  Or upon the job market?  Those lists may be chewing up your flow.

Besides, I don’t want to know what you want to get from the situation.  I want to know what you want to give.READ MORE + COMMENT

I got this delightful email from a reader, Alena Gerst Dailey in New York City, and decided to share her fun success story with you:

A “Follow the Breadcrumbs” Success Story

“I enjoy reading your newsletter and wanted to reach out.  You wrote one thing in a newsletter a while back and I wrote it on a post it at my desk "Follow the breadcrumbs".  I was a yoga teacher/social worker and not doing the mind/body work I set out to do, rather working in an employment program with the chronically homeless.  Follow the breadcrumbs became my mantra.  I'd send an email, follow up with someone else, ask for an informational interview, accept a volunteer opportunity, take a workshop, introduce myself...little things, crumbs really, but I followed them.  Now I'm in my first week in my new full time position at an integrative wellness initiative at NYU Medical Center.  And I love it.  Thank you for sharing your thoughts and wisdoms.”  

“Follow the Breadcrumbs” How You can Discover your Ideal Career, Calling, & Life in this unconventional way.

Career, life, love….we’re looking for the master plan, kind of like an instruction booklet for how to build a bird house. But living your calling isn’t a path in which you build anything. You don’t have to create it. You don’t have to make it happen. You have to follow. You have to obey the inner signals, the nudges, the Morse code of the soul. Remember, there is a Life that calls you.

Pay attention with your heart, not your mind.

The mind wants to know where things will go. The mind doesn’t believe gargantuan things happen from sweet, tiny steps. But this is a path of intuition. It has different rules. There are no sizes. Or as A Course in Miracles says, “There is no order of difficulty in miracles.”  You’re either listening to a power that has no limits or you’re listening to a limited mind that has no power.READ MORE + COMMENT

at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health

(in the Berkshire Mountains of Lenox, Mass.)

October 10-14, 2011

An Intensive to Create the Work and Life you Love

You might have read about 300 self-help books by now.

I want you to stop reading about finding your passion--- and know in your bones what you’re meant to do.

And that you’re going to make it.  In your own intelligent way. And it’s going to rock.

You know how everyone knows how to lose weight. No big secrets. Eat responsibly and exercise. But people lose weight not because they know how to do it, but because they suddenly see that they can do it.  Something becomes activated. They find their will.

That’s what I want for you with your right work in this world. I want to ignite your talents, a high-octane strength you don’t even know you have, and your exponential possibilities. I want to save you years of therapy, ugly health bills, regrets, financial insecurity, and fights with your spouse. I want to help make you very, very happy.

I want you to spend 5 days with me in a holy, enchanted space during peak Fall foliage in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts. 5 days away from your ordinary life, asking the most extraordinary questions of your life time.  Surrounded by other creative, adventurous, entrepreneurial, warrior souls in transition who are dedicated to going for it…living their dreams, mission, and freedom in life right now. What will you create in your life once you are inspired, lifted, convinced, clear and supported? Don’t you want to find out?

I know that other workshops may have made grand promises, they didn’t fulfill. Let me tell you, this retreat delivers. (Check out some of the video endorsements here)READ MORE + COMMENT

Peace first.  Passion second.

It’s a simple recipe for a fully successful life.  Still, few cook it up.

Relax.  Forgive yourself.  Trust where you stand in your life right now.  Trust the crinkle-eyed Magician who lives and rejoices within.

From a place of self-love, self-knowledge comes.  Wonder resides.  Direction emerges.  Passion spreads its wings.  Air currents align.

The relaxed know how to fly.  Those who push to the front of the line, struggle to tear answers from their heads, count the seconds wasting from their lives, and blame their mothers, husbands, left wing leaders, muscle pain and lousy local economy-- do not light upon genius.  If you’re pissed, you’re never blessed—especially if you’re angry at yourself.

Fear attracts fear.  Love attracts love.

And love doesn’t just muck around in striped flannel pajamas cherry picking channels.  Love starts READ MORE + COMMENT

I’d rather be rude than regret my life.  How about you?

When you’re in the middle of changing your life, you’re going to need to change some habits.  Your social life may take a hit.

When you’re walking on a tightrope, you don’t have the bandwidth to talk to your drama-crisis-darling friend who has just broken up with her guy for the 47th time.

Because you need your focus right now.  You need extra attention.  You’re in the middle of a swamp negotiating alligators.  You’re walking down a deserted alley in a sketchy part of town, lost, and you can’t even find your smart phone (because someone wasn’t smart enough to bring it.)  Yes, you’re following your bliss.  But let’s be real.  Change is change.  It comes at you like a mugger sometimes, robbing you of serenity.  It spikes your adrenaline.  It’s not polite.  So you can’t be as polite with others-- as you negotiate the newness of your life.

I felt bad the other day.  I had finally taken some time to write.  Finally, hit a high note, too.  But then I had to leave this party to talk to my friend.  My friend stole the conversation.  I let him do it.  He’s witty and even when he’s only talking about himself, he throws so many sparks into the night sky.  Today, I didn’t care about the sparks.  I wanted to go back to my own.  I left my party to join his.  We hung up, and he felt fuller and more alive.  I felt pissed.

This has been happening to me a lot lately.  I’m noticing READ MORE + COMMENT

I often hear this pain from creative visionaries.  Too many great ideas.  “There’s not enough time to get everything done,” they cry.

“There is enough time to get something done,” I say quietly.

Why focus on the minutes running out the door stealing brain cells, bits of sparkles, Pulitzer Prize winning screenplay plots and other plunder?  Look at what you are doing.  Look at what you can do.

It’s a blessing to be creatively abundant.

It’s a gift to have a thousand ideas and a thousand more.  You don’t have to chase them all or cash in all your chips.  You don’t have to build a shrine to every deity that slips you an inspired wink.

Creative abundance means you have more than enough.READ MORE + COMMENT

Reinventing yourself ---is like getting a doctorate degree in how to handle fear.

When you take a risk or believe in yourself, reality isn’t the enemy. Fear is.

“Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world,” says Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Fear tells you lies. Fear points to your hemorrhaging bank account, your loose teeth and missed opportunities, and how everyone else either won a Grammy, married rich, hit the New York Times Bestseller list or had three perfect children-- and not a one of them ever opened a meth lab, went on a killing spree, or dropped out of law school.

Fear specializes in shadow making. Fear growls and rumbles to keep you frozen in a debate with yourself that never goes anywhere.  Fear points to “reality,” while taking you right out of it. Because my friend-- love is the only reality. No matter what the facts of your current life suggest, love has other facts, other factors, and other capacities.

The most important thing you will ever do in this lifetime is stop listening to your fear.  Students and clients ask me all the time, “What did you do?” “How did you handle it?”READ MORE + COMMENT

"Surviving meant being born over and over again." Erica Jong

Freedom is not just about being able to choose anything you want. Freedom is ease with oneself. Believe me, you know this, when you're in a transition faced with goblins, jewels, and choices. See, the problem isn't that you don't know yet which life you want. The real problem is that voice in your head--which is just way too much like a jumpy crack junkie, or, say, a cattle-prodding "concerned" relative, who needs you to get a fice in the park--rather than take a walk in it. This junkie is calling out the inner militia to make you DO something. But here's what you are doing: You are learning to trust yourself, your life and your spirit. You are learning the art of living a more inspired life.

Between the worlds often requires that we hang out on the perimeter, before diving in. Of course, you may look around at others, thinking they're so "productive." but what are they getting done? Another day at the office swallowing yawns, truth, and boredom and spending the bulk of their week with people they don't admire or cherish. What do you think will matter to you at the end of your life? will it be that you attended another business meeting or swept another floor? Or will it be that you took the time to be with your own heart beating and that you created a life that swept all doubts away? Learning how to trust your deepest desires and yourself are among the most important things you can do with your breaths on earth.READ MORE + COMMENT

Last week, in keeping with the Jewish religion,  I shoveled dirt on my mother’s coffin. They lowered the mahogany box into the ground. It was a sunny day. That’s how wrong it all it was.

Only days before, I had flown in from     Colorado to spend some vacation time with her.

I don’t know how to write about this enormous experience. I’m going to try.

What Happened:
I had gone back to NY to spend vacation time with my mother. I was teaching at Omega for the weekend. When my retreat ended, Paul, my partner, came to pick me up, bringing my mother with him to see Omega.  I had stayed longer with my group, and had decided to have lunch with them. I invited mom to join us.

Everyone was telling my mother how wonderful I was, what a great daughter she had. My mother ate it up. She couldn’t resist telling them stories of how smart I was in kindergarten, the awards I won, and then talking about herself without pause or asking anyone else about themselves. I felt embarrassed and irritated. Now I feel pain as I remember this opportunity to have loved more deeply.

I wanted my mother to have a great time. But then when she was there, I felt stressed. I am telling myself that “only the love is real.” My intentions were pure. And I know she loved being there. And that emotional complexity is part of the human dance.  But I am sad. I am sad that I let “my stuff” get in the way of being present. I was tired. I had taught non-stop all weekend. I had a meeting with my publisher scheduled for the next day and I was nervous. I can tell you all the reasons.  And in time, they will comfort me. But right now I am sad that I wasn’t as present as I wanted to be, as I aimed to be. I am sad that I didn’t tell her I loved her one thousand times-- even though I have told her hundreds of times. That I didn’t let her talk more at the table, tell stories that “didn’t matter,” and tell everyone- in front of her- how much she meant to me. If time is fluid and goes in all directions, as some physicists say, I am sitting at that table now. I am telling everyone about my mother. I am beaming at her, letting her know just how precious she is.

We drove to the train station. READ MORE + COMMENT

I wrote this email to a former client and thought I’d share it with you. Sorry, I left out her gory details.

Hello Beautiful (Fill in your Name Here!),
    
I feel your angst and wish I had magic words to soothe you. Actually, I do.

I know that nothing you choose or do not choose right now will make a difference in your ultimate destiny.

Every Decision Works. It’s All Progress

Your walk is with Inspired Guidance and you are safe and loved in ALL choices. To our everyday minds, the details and choices seem paramount. But to your soul and your heart, everything is learning. Everything is juice. Everything equals progress. Everything can be healed. And you can always begin again. What you learn is more important than what you choose.

What Motivates the Decision Determines the Outcome

But in all decisions, I’d question what the motivation is…is it fear or excitement? Caution or strength? Protection or Love? Is it from your smaller self or your expanding one? And if you were relaxed, and sure that everything would work out, what kinds of choices would you make then? Who is the decision maker? That’s whose journey you’ll be going on. And if you can’t choose from your ideal self yet, READ MORE + COMMENT

Did you know that the word amateur comes from the Latin root meaning "to love?"

To love, we must become innocent.

You're not supposed to do the work you love stringently. You're not supposed to pursue your dreams with careful strategy. Maybe you’re not even supposed to know what you’re doing, until you do it.

Become an amateur. Forget the standards and judgments. Remember the unfiltered joy.

Following a calling means you’re meant to stumble here and there, loosen up on your mind’s need to make snap conclusions and close all the doors, before they open.

Drop your bags filled with demands. Wallow in sweetness, or don’t come to the party. Experience the new-- as a new person in a new time- every time. Keep discovering with wide eyes. That’s the pay off of following true desire.

Love wipes the slate clean--- or it isn't love.

©2011 Tama J. Kieves. All rights reserved
Tama J. Kieves has been featured on Oprah Radio and is the bestselling author of This Time I Dance! Create the Work You Love. She is a sought-after speaker and career coach who has helped thousands worldwide discover and live their true work in the world. Sign up at ThisTimeIDance.com to receive the free monthly email newsletter with Tama’s latest articles (and events). For daily inspiration, continuous support & great group conversation, join Tama on Facebook and Twitter.

Ever feel like you’re weird?

Like somehow you don’t fit?

Like you want something more from life than a red SUV or custom tiles in the bathroom? Hey, it’s cool to want something more from life-- and chocolate brown Spanish adobe tiles in your bathroom. Let’s not be crazy or anything.

But here’s what I want you to know. You don’t fit in, because you didn’t come here to fit in. You didn’t rush to planet Earth just to be a lemming or get to the mall.

Your soul said, I’ll go first. I’ll call it. I won’t get distracted by “the shoulds,” the promises, and the baubles. I’ll seek the true strength. I’ll hunt the light. I’ll remember this time. I’ll know there’s something more and I won’t rest until I find it. I’ll be one of the ones who goes first.

You weirdo. You’re a visionary. You’re a change agent. You’re a beacon. You’re a pioneer. You’re on the fringes of the bell curve, changing the ratio of our mass consciousness as we speak. And I thank you. And I bless you. And I join you.

I found this quote by Bialik in Hebrew at an art fair. I read the translation and smiled within. It made some of the emotional isolation worth it. The confusion and the clawing through the darkness, knowing there was something else.

“Behold, you’ve found the good, the gold and orange. You were the first ones to face the sunlight.”

Thanks for going first.

©2011 Tama J. Kieves. All rights reserved

Tama J. Kieves has been featured on Oprah Radio and is the bestselling author of This Time I Dance! Create the Work You Love. She is a sought-after speaker and career coach who has helped thousands worldwide discover and live their true work in the world. Sign up at ThisTimeIDance.com to receive the free monthly email newsletter with Tama’s latest articles (and events). For daily inspiration, continuous support & great group conversation, join Tama on Facebook and Twitter.

Watch the Video!!

Just wanted to share this FUN and TRUE story with you (less than 3 min.) about how the Universe conspires to give you ANYTHING you need, when you follow your dreams!  Enjoy!  Share it with those you’d love to support!  And I’d love to hear your thoughts dear ones!

READ MORE + COMMENT

“Tama Kieves is the real deal!”--- Rev. Michael Bernard Beckwith, Founder of Agape International (and one of the featured experts in ‘The Secret’)

“I loved This Time I Dance! Create the Work You Love so much that I was afraid to meet Tama, afraid she wouldn’t be as inspiring and real as she was in the book. I never thought it possible. But she’s MORE alive, inspiring, smart, and just mind blowing. So grateful for this weekend!” --- Julie Johnson, a retreat participant

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        1.   Researchers show that your brain wave activity changes in group meditation.  Come to a retreat with Tama, and your brain waves will fry eggs and launch rockets and write screen plays and heal cancer and incite world peace.  Or you’ll just be really clear about your true work, your sparkling life and resources, and your immediate do-able next steps.READ MORE + COMMENT

This Independence Day, why not write your own Declaration of Independence?

What do you want to declare or break free from? I want to break free from holding back my power. I no longer want to live with only my low beams on. I want to shine so unequivocally that others decide to abandon their own shadow choices. I want to break away from the undermining thinking of the “realistic” world --- and choose some independent thinking, some firecracker, celebrating, birth-giving thoughts. Here’s an excerpt from my DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. Want to come and live in my country?READ MORE + COMMENT

People love my “fairy godmother story,” and yes, I love telling it. Here’s the encrypted version: I spent 12 years writing my book This Time I Dance! Creating the Work you Love without a publisher, agent, or contract.  I followed a thin and fanciful golden thread within me.  When I self-published the book, it was “discovered” and delivered straight into the hands of the publisher of my dreams, Tarcher/Penguin.  It sounds like I picked the winning numbers and won the lottery.  But I have to tell you, a miracle has nothing to do with luck.  It’s an extension, not an intervention.

Many writers, artists, and new entrepreneurs, listen to my story as though it’s a fairytale.  Their eyes glow with visions of candy canes, train sets, and fan mail coming their way.  I love to share my story because I want people to know the power of listening to their own inner voice. READ MORE + COMMENT

How do you tap the creative flow in the middle of a hairy, busy, chaotic life?  I use these 3 practices.

Many times people believe they need blocks of time to create, a cottage, a servant, a veranda in Bali, or maybe just a peeling garret in France. But as someone who runs a business, speaks, travels, coaches, and seems to have more demands than hours in the day, I can’t have my creative life be separate from ordinary life.  I can’t wait for the ideal circumstances to generate content for my email newsletters, blogs, books, or products.  I can’t wait for the fields of time, cheese and wine.  So how do you create sanctuary for your creative self in the middle of chaos?  How do you create a portal? How do you turn on the tap when maybe you’re tapped out or life is pulling you in too many directions?

Here’s 3 Quick Suggestions to Expand Time and Creative Flow:READ MORE + COMMENT