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I am also co-founder and co-author of the ChiLiving, ChiRunning, and ChiWalking books and programs.
Throughout my life and while managing a variety of businesses, I have delved ever more deeply into the inner practices of meditation and listening deeply to the body’s wisdom. A big focus has been on relationships, including a 30-year marriage, parenting my daughter and supporting and cultivating staff. Through all of it, I have relished the creative process of living life with reverence and awe.
Currently, I am in a 6-month meditation and mindfulness training and am studying Qigong for health and healing. I’m on the Board of Directors for the Well Being Retreat Center. And, I support my clients in their many endeavors: improved health, career changes, relationship support, and their search for meaning and happiness.
My early life challenges were the gateway to realizing my purpose. I was the fourth of five dynamic siblings, with a distant, wounded mother and an angry, absent father. As a result, I felt weak and insignificant and tried to compensate in any way possible.
I could not really feel myself, and I always looked outward to figure out what was right for me to do, say, or act like. It wasn’t pretty. I was awkward and had a feeling of being “less than” everyone else, who all seemed so sure of themselves.
My path to self-acceptance and forgiveness began when I discovered meditation in the late 1980s which changed everything for me. Those initial practices took me on a life journey that I can only describe as blessed and beautiful.
The seed was planted when I was 15 years-old. I took a World Religion class and asked to meet one-on-one with a Buddhist monk. I asked him about meditation which intrigued me. In my Mythology class, I read Joseph Campbell’s books about the spiritual meaning of these profound stories. I remember consciously incorporating many of these ideas into my life-philosophy.
When I was 28 these studies became more personally and emotionally motivated. I was living and working at HBO in New York City and was lonely and lost. When a friend took me to a metaphysical bookstore and the shop assistant asked me what I was interested in, I shyly said meditation. I devoured the books he suggested.
I began exploring mindfulness techniques like meditation, forgiveness exercises, and body awareness. I devoted one full day to the practices to give it a test run. At the end of the day, I remember thinking, “Oh well, I don’t feel any different.”
On the subway to work the next morning, everything felt different. I experienced myself in a profound way that made me realize I had found a whole new way of being. I was aware of a “presence” in myself I had never felt before. And it was just the beginning.
Several months later, I experienced something truly transformative. After doing my forgiveness exercise, I decided to forgive myself. Almost instantaneously it was as if everything I ever thought was wrong about myself burned up inside me in a blaze. It felt like fire without pain. I sat down in meditation as one person and stood up as someone completely different. For about a week, I was in an incredibly blissful state. There was nothing to forgive. The world was absolutely perfect. Everything was meant to be, exactly as it is.
It was 1988, and I had no one to share these experiences with, but over the next few years, I felt guided every step of the way, and my life completely changed. It all felt miraculous. It was.
I left my job at HBO and moved to Boulder, Colorado, to work at New Hope Communications, a publishing and event company for the natural health industry. Within three years, I was the president of the company. I met my husband, Danny, and spent my free time in meditation groups and hiking or skiing the mountains of Colorado. I was learning about natural health from the industry’s experts, who became my mentors and dear friends. I found people who understood my experience in New York, and with whom I could explore this inner world.
In 1998 Danny and I moved to San Francisco for another job in the natural health industry, and being pregnant, we eventually wanted to start our own business. Danny began teaching the running technique that had transformed his own running, and thus in 1999 ChiLiving and ChiRunning were born.
The Chi Principles
Danny and I spent the next 20 years writing books, teaching Instructors and workshops around the world. We raised our daughter and worked on our marriage with the same practices I use to coach my clients. Together with the Chi Instructors, we created a global community of people also dedicated to moving forward in life with intention and purpose. Perhaps you’re one of them!
The Chi principles have struck a chord with so many people because of their stalwart foundation in the principles found in nature, of which we are all apart. Most people feel that they simply ring true.
Taking these principles into ChiLife Coaching is the next evolutionary step of ChiLiving. So many people have said that ChiRunning or ChiWalking changed their life. Now I’ve created a coaching program that makes transferring the Chi principles into everyday living easier.
I always knew I wanted to be of service to others. Overcoming my struggles and intense inner critic led me to discover my passion for guiding others to their own deeply fulfilling life.
I was CEO of ChiLiving, Vice President of HealthShop, President of New Hope Communications, and Marketing Director at HBO Video. I am a Certified Clear Beliefs Coach. I integrate Gene Gendlin’s Focusing, Qigong, and other embodied, mindful practices to help you find your way in this wild, wacky, wonderful world.
I’ve learned that joy, peace, and love all exist within every single one of us. We just need to dust off the layers of ideas and beliefs that keep us from seeing our own glorious selves.
I’d be honored to be your guide.
If you have questions, please contact me at chilifecoach@gmail.com.
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