Your Year of Miracles

Category: Personal Growth

  • Keeping Bright Over the Holidays

    Keeping Bright Over the Holidays


    Welcome to today’s Miracle Moment.

    It’s the holidays and maybe you’re feeling a little stressed, overwhelmed, stretched a bit too thin, or even feeling a little blue. Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

    The rate of depression goes up over the holidays for many reasons. Maybe it’s the thought of dealing with that cranky aunt of yours at the family dinner. Or, maybe it’s the stress of finding the right gift for someone in your life.

    Maybe it’s the financial burden of all of those gifts you feel that you have to purchase. Or, maybe it’s all of the sugar that’s popping up everywhere that you end up eating. For multiple reasons, many people don’t feel happy during the holidays. In fact, December can be a month of burnout.

    Today we’re sharing with you a simple way to get yourself back into the Miracle Zone; a way to keep your energy bright and steady, even when the holiday craziness is all around you.

    I (Dr. Sue) have been working with patients for more than 30 years, and I’ve witnessed how many people experience depression, overwhelm, and stress during the holidays.

    During this time, the breath work I’ve developed is especially helpful as it anchors us in our bodies and hearts and brings us into the present moment. Instead of being in our heads thinking of all we have to do, this breath work allows us to heal,and can remind us that this is a time of miracles on earth– a time to remember that we are made of high frequency energy and light.

    To get back into the Miracle Zone, here’s a simple, but powerful practice…

    1. Begin by breathing down low in your belly. As you inhale, make your belly big.
    2. Exhale, pulling your belly back to your spine.
    3. Inhale making your belly big like Santa’s belly or like a big Buddha belly, and exhale making the belly smaller on the exhale.
    4. Breath in and imagine that a ray of light, a bundle of Holy light, is pouring down into your body.
    5. As you exhale, infuse that light into the cells of your body.
    6. Take another deep breath in from overhead and experience it coming down through the center of your brain, the center of your throat, the center of your chest, the center of your belly.
    7. Exhale into the earth and open the jaw making the sound of haah.

    This vibrational tone allows you to anchor and center yourself at the same time. It pulls you out of the hubbub that’s happening in the world and allows you to drop down into your body to feel an entirely different vibrational frequency moving through you.

    As simple as it seems, this practice can change everything in an instant. It can change your entire experience during the holidays.

    This is the season of lights—there are lights on the trees, candles are lit, you see light everywhere on the outside. Let’s also experience the light within ourselves with this simple practice.

    The holidays are Holy days. Rather than being stressed out and not experiencing the holiness of the season, let’s truly make the holidays Holy days filled with light and love.

    Happy Holy Days with all our love.

    Please share your experience of this breath work practice in the comments section below and on our Facebook page. We love hearing from you!

  • The Power of the Fourth Chakra

    The Power of the Fourth Chakra


    Today’s Miracle Moment is about the fourth chakra, the heart center.

    The fourth chakra, in the area of the heart, is the energy center most associated with giving and receiving love. When we feel open-hearted, when our hearts feel full and expanded rather than contracted or in fear, when we feel gratitude, forgiveness and loving-kindness, then we’re in the energetic state of flow we call the Miracle Zone, where we’re more open to the miraculous.

    While we can’t “create” miracles, we can create the conditions for miracles to show up more in our lives. As Webster’s dictionary says, “Miracles are a surprise and welcome event that cannot be predicted by science and that are often attributed to Divine Grace.”

    One of the fastest ways to create the conditions that invite miracles is to open the fourth chakra more and to live with greater love and a more open heart.

    Love is what we’re made of; it’s not something we’re supposed to be finding or looking for. It’s inherently who we are. When we drop into that knowing, we start to breathe in a different way — a way that’s associated with recognizing that we belong, that there’s only oneness here. Then we’ll develop more of the consciousness of that state.

    So, you can approach opening the fourth chakra by breathing in a particular way that wakes you up to the parts of you that know you belong, your essence.

    To expand the fourth chakra, here’s a simple, but powerful practice…

    • Begin by breathing in your belly, which activates a part of your nervous system that says all is well.
    • Keep breathing in until you fill the upper lobes of your lungs as well. Then, breathe even bigger. Imagine that you’re bigger than the body.
    • Then exhale out in every direction—above you, below you, to the left, to the right, to the front, and to the back in a big sphere.
    • Then, inhale from every direction right back into your belly.
    • Continue inhaling into the upper lobes of the lungs, and then inhale bigger than the body.
    • Exhale in every direction.
    • Again, inhale from every direction right back into your belly. Inhale into your lungs, upper lobes, and then bigger than the body.
    • Exhale in every direction.
    • Practice this sequence six to eight times, several times a day.

    This spherical breathing puts you in the quantum field, which also happens to be the field where miracles occur.

    The quantum field is beyond logic, and we can access this field by breathing this spherical breath. Practice this several times a day, and you will start to feel very different in the world.

    Notice how it feels for you — we imagine you’ll feel more open in your heart and able to more easily access the love that’s your essence.

    We end this Miracle Moment with a quote from the Upanishads that says…

    “There is a light which shines beyond the world, beyond everything, beyond all, beyond
    the highest heaven. This is the light which shines within your heart.”

    We wish you lots of access to the essence of love that you truly are!

    Please share your experience of this spherical breath in the comments section below and on our Facebook page. What has it elicited in you? We love hearing from you!

  • The Power of the Third Chakra

    The Power of the Third Chakra


    Today’s Miracle Moment is about the third chakra located in the solar plexus area—the energy center of personal power and self-esteem.

    The third chakra relates to the mental body and is energetically associated with your personal power and self-esteem. This third chakra, rotating as a vortex of energy, is in your solar plexus, about three inches above the navel, at the base of the sternum. You can experience your personal power by breathing into and through your solar plexus.

    When we can’t feel and connect with our vital life force in our solar plexus, we have a tendency to jump into our head and start over-thinking, creating “stories” about what’s happening, and getting caught up in those stories and external circumstances.

    The moment you find yourself starting to do that, bring your attention to where your ribs splay apart above your navel and below the sternum.

    To activate the third chakra in your solar plexus, stretch and open this area. You can do this with the following practice…

    • Reach your arms up high and then reach behind you as if you are putting your hands in your back pocket.
    • When you inhale into your belly, stretch this area of your body wide open, extending the spine.
    • Exhale and come back to neutral.

    By doing this simple practice, you’re squeezing the solar plexus area as if it were a sponge. This opens and flushes the tissues in the area and brings life force into the cellular structure, where the cells start to vibrate. This activates the level of consciousness associated with the third chakra, which allows you to still your mind and be open to greater self-love.

    We’ve noticed that a lot of women have issues around self-empowerment—of being in their power. Often, they may not feel as confident to move out into the world, to express their power, to express their ideas, to feel like they have some sovereignty. They may not feel okay to take up space in the world.

    If you have any issues with self-empowerment, with feeling your own sense of power in the world, then doing this practice will help you open up to your inherent power.

    When we have access to our true power–not our fake power, but the authentic power that’s the true essence of who we are–then we’re much more able to live in the Miracle Zone. This is the place where life flows, where we are in tune with the energy of life, where we’re bringing our authentic Self forward and meeting life in miraculous ways.

    We invite you to do this practice for even a minute or two each day–it can make a huge difference in your life. It will open you up to authentic self-esteem and self-love, where you truly feel like you belong and that you are okay.

    We end this Miracle Moment with a beautiful excerpt from a poem called Love After Love by Derek Walcott, a Nobel laureate and writer.

    “The day will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your
    own door, in your own mirror…You will love again the stranger who was yourself.”

    May you feel your own power, and may that open you up to the experience of love that you deserve.

    Please share with us on our Facebook page and in the comments section below how you’re feeling as you do this practice.

  • The Power of the Second Chakra

    The Power of the Second Chakra


    Today’s Miracle Moment is about the second chakra—the center of vitality and creativity–which is a major opening to the Miracle Zone.

    Our seven main chakras are vortices of energy, each with a different vibrational frequency that relates to a particular organ and affects associated parts of the body. Since your chakras represent various states of consciousness, as you open and strengthen the chakras, you develop a greater capacity for living in the Miracle Zone.

    The second chakra is associated with your innate creativity and vitality. When it’s open and flowing, you feel very alive and connected to your creativity. When it’s not functioning well, you might have a tightness in the gut or other gut issues and life doesn’t feel as though it’s in the flow.

    The second chakra is in the area of the womb, an area of deep wisdom and creativity, from which we birth children and birth new ideas.

    Bring your consciousness to the area of the second chakra, just below your navel and above the pubic bone. Focus on and allow yourself to breathe into this area, which enlivens your tissues. The energy in that area may begin to vibrate as your wisdom and creativity are activated.

    Wherever breath is, life is. Where your consciousness goes, the energy flows.

    Follow these simple steps to activate your second chakra …

    • Bring your attention to your forehead, the space between your eyes, and inward to the center of the brain.
    • Move your focus of attention down the center of your body as if you’re going down an elevator shaft.
    • Bring your awareness to your belly and breathe in making your belly big.
    • Exhale, pulling your belly back to your spine.
    • Inhale, making your belly big. (Let your belly hang over your belt and pants.)
    • Again, exhale, pulling your belly back to your spine.
    • Continue inhaling, making your belly big and then exhaling, pulling the belly back to your spine.

    Breathing deeply in your belly triggers your nervous system to recognize that all is well, and you can more easefully tap into your creativity. On the other hand, breathing shallowly in the upper lobes of your lungs will trigger the fight or flight stress response, which freezes our creativity, vitality and flow.

    When you tap into your creativity and are connected to vital energy in your life, it’s much easier to feel that you’re in the Miracle Zone. You are feeling your own connection to the flow of the Universe–your vitality is connecting with the vitality of the Universe.

    We invite you to experiment with this practice and let us know what’s happening in your life as you do the practice.

    We end this Miracle Moment with a quote by José Ortega y Gasset, a 20th century Spanish philosopher who said…

    “Love is that splendid triggering of human vitality, the supreme activity
    which nature affords anyone for going out of himself toward someone else.”

    May you feel vital energy and creativity triggered in your life.

    Please share your experiences of this practice in the comments section below. We love hearing from you!

  • The Power of the First Chakra

    The Power of the First Chakra


    Over the next few months, we’ll be sharing with you in these Miracle Moments how to open through the seven main chakras to live more in the Miracle Zone.

    Today’s Miracle Moment is about how we can connect with and open the first or root chakra.

    The root chakra is at the base of your spine, around the tailbone. It’s your access to feelings of safety, connectedness to mother earth, and groundedness. And when you feel safe, connected to earth, and grounded, it’s much easier to live in the Miracle Zone.

    The root chakra is about having the feeling of…This is my gig. I’m not here to fit into everybody else’s world. This is my life experience. I created it, and it’s mine.

    Here is one way to relax into that experience of safety and groundedness by opening your root chakra:

    Lean back against your spine (this doesn’t mean to lean back against your chair). From the inside of your body, lean back inside and relax; with your attention, slide down your spine and sit down inside of yourself.

    From there you can access the root chakra energy, which creates a sense of relaxation that allows your nervous system to experience…All is well!

    You know the peace you feel when you’re in nature and your feet are connected to the ground? Or, when you’re sitting on the ground and your body just relaxes? That’s what happens when you do this practice regularly.

    We invite you to do this practice over the next few weeks and notice how it feels.

    Connect in more deeply to that feeling of…Aaah, all is well. I am safe in the Universe. I feel more grounded.

    As you experience this feeling more, notice what’s shifting in your life? Are you opening to experiencing more miracles?

    Make this your “go-to” practice until you have a continual sense of well-being and belonging. As we connect with the root chakra, we feel greater trust in all of life.

    We end this Miracle Moment with a quote from Jack Kornfield, a great author and meditation teacher:

    ”Love is based on our capacity to trust in a reality beyond fear;
    to trust a timeless truth that’s bigger than all of our difficulties.”

    Please share your experiences of this practice in the comments section below. We love hearing from you!

  • The Power of Living Enough

    The Power of Living Enough

    Today’s Miracle Moment Is About the Power of Living Enough…

    I (Marci) recently saw a beautiful etching in a home I visited that said, Let whatever you do today be enough. What a concept!

    Most of us don’t live in a state of “enoughness.” Instead, we live in “I don’t have enough time. I don’t have enough money. I don’t have enough friends. I didn’t do enough today.”

    There’s such a great power in the energy of enoughness. When we stake a claim for ourselves as being enough, and realize we are enough, then what we do and what we have is automatically enough.

    The energy of “not enoughness” is a by-product of not having a strong sense of Self, which results in constantly trying to prove, validate, or earn our enoughness in some way. This is one of our greatest causes of pain.

    An extraordinary woman and dear friend of ours, Lynne Twist, speaks of a concept of sufficiency, what we’re calling enoughness. Lynne, who wrote The Soul of Money and is the co-founder of the Pachamama Alliance, says that our wanting of so much comes from a feeling of lack—but what we really want and need in life is sufficiency or enoughness.

    Our mission is to help people live in a state of miraculous flow—the Miracle Zone– where life really works. A key to being in this flow is to live in the state of enough.

    • I have enough time.
    • I have enough resources.
    • I have enough of everything that I truly need.
    • I have enough trust that everything happens right on time and in my favor.
    • I have enough trust with the Universe that I know in this “now” moment everything is being met that needs to be met.

    So, here is our invitation to you to live more in the Miracle Zone.…

    Over the next few weeks, hold the word enough in your heart. As you’re going through the day, and you catch yourself saying or thinking, “I don’t have enough time. I didn’t get enough done, or any other version of not enough” STOP.

    Say to yourself and feel, “There is enough. I have enough. Everything I need will be supplied. I did plenty. I have plenty. It’s perfect just as it is.”

    Then you’ll start to feel a stronger sense of Self that you don’t feel when you’re so busy trying to get more and trying to accomplish enough.

    We’re on this enough journey together! May this phrase be a helpful guide…

    Let whatever you do today be enough.

    We invite you to share your experiences of the power of living enough in the comments section below. We love hearing from you!

  • Remembering Who You Really Are

    Remembering Who You Really Are

    Today’s Miracle Moment Is About Remembering Who You Are…

    A number of years ago when I (Marci) was writing Happy For No Reason, I read the story about a tribe in Africa in which every tribe member has a signature song. When a baby is in the womb, the family feels into that baby’s soul and comes up with a “signature song” for the baby. The child is sung their song during the pregnancy, when they are born, and many times throughout their childhood. The entire tribe knows each person’s song and they sing the songs to each other.

    When a member of their tribe commits a crime, rather than punishing them, the entire tribe gathers and circles around that person. Then they sing the offender “their song” to remind them of who they are.

    Then each person in the circle shares their appreciation of that person to further help them remember who they are.

    Isn’t that amazing!

    The whole tribe stays strong when everyone loves and uplifts each other rather than judges each other.

    How different from how our modern culture operates! But, we can adopt this perspective for ourselves and our own family and friends – to remind ourselves and each other who we really are.

    We can breathe our own breath in such a way that it feels as familiar as our own song being sung to us.

    If you take slow, deep belly breaths regularly throughout the day, you continually soothe yourself and connect with your true Self. This is a reminder of your vibrational signature that feels like home, and you can create this for yourself at any moment.

    Here’s what to do:

    Every time you take a deep belly breath, relax your shoulders, rest the activity in your mind, and drop into the deep core central channel of your being. Your subconscious is going to respond with, “Oh, there I am. I don’t have to work so hard to figure out who I am. I don’t have to prove it. I don’t have to be afraid. I remember who I am.”

    When you give that signal to the subconscious, you connect to the feeling of belonging—as though you are part of a tribe that is not going to let you flail about, but will hold you high and remind you of who you are.

    The truth is that we are each magnificent beings. There is not anything wrong with any of us, and all we have to do is remember who we truly are.

    Over these next weeks, we invite you to practice checking in and remembering who you are…the truth of your essence. And, don’t just rely on your mind alone—let your body and your breath help facilitate the process.

    When your mind, body, and breath are all working together, you don’t feel alone!

    We’d love to hear your thoughts, feelings, and experiences of practicing this. Please share with us in the comments section below.

  • The Power of Soul Family

    The Power of Soul Family

    Today’s Miracle Moment is about the Power of having a Soul Family…

    The other night, we had a joyous soul family party celebrating Sue and the launch of her fabulous new book, The Energy Codes. Sue has been working on this book for a long, long time and it was time to celebrate her.

    You’ve probably heard the saying “It takes a village to raise a child.” Well it takes a village—a soul tribe–to create and launch a book, too! It’s been amazing to watch all the people who’ve come together to help support Sue in her journey.

    It can really stretch us to receive outpourings of support. As Sue shared, “I’ve had to uplevel my receiver. I’ve had to increase my willingness to cellularly and consciously take it in, to let it be felt. It’s been so massive and from every direction from this tribe of people who have been in my life, in some cases for a decade or more and some very new. Now, they’re all surging forward in support of this book. I feel how incredibly potent the energy of support towards me is. I’m so used to giving and being in service, and I’ve had to tap into an entirely different set of circuits to fully receive. When we exchange on this soul family level, it’s very important that we open to receive as much as we give.”

    I (Marci) have also seen how the most amazing developments in my life have come because of the support of my soul family, including the birth of Your Year of Miracles (with deep gratitude to Debra Poneman and Kim Forcina).

    We invite you to dig deeply into finding who your soul family is.

    Ask yourself, “Who is my soul tribe, and how can I open up to letting them support me in my bigger magnificence?”

    Make a list of who’s part of your soul family and how you’d like support from them. Maybe pick up the phone or send an email asking for support. AND be open to receiving.

    As you’re doing this you’ll feel your heart open though you might feel a little jittering inside: “Oh, should I ask? Should I really reach out in this way?”

    That jittering is a part of you tapping in and coming to life in a new way. And, when you do tap it and allow it to be breathing along with the rest of you, then your soul family reveals itself (they may be different than the ones you thought were there for you). A greater resonance steps up into your life. And the next thing you know, you experience this divine sensation of support that helps everything unfold with greater grace.

    As an old African proverb goes…

    “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

    May you find the people you want to go together with, and may you have a beautiful time on the journey.

    We are so thankful to be on this journey with you!

    Please share with us what soul family means to you in the comments below.

  • Power of Intuition

    Power of Intuition

    Today’s Miracle Moment is about the miraculous power of developing your intuition…

    Dr. Sue and I (Marci) want to share with you a quick tip about intuition. Intuition is when we gain insight without the use of reason. Intuition is knowledge that comes to us spontaneously before we have a chance to analyze it with our intellects. Unfortunately, over time we start to doubt our intuitive voice, and we start to shut down that channel of information.

    The good news is that it’s still there waiting very patiently for us to open up. It’s ready to get back into business again, but it’s like a muscle that hasn’t been exercised. It’s still there, it still exists; and if you want to build it up, you need to exercise it consciously.

    The first and most important thing that you can do to develop your intuition is to acknowledge and honor the messages that you receive.

    Start noticing simple gut feelings throughout the day, trust those gut feelings, and act on them. Even if they seem illogical, you’ll be amazed at the positive results that show up. Although the mind is sometimes a useful provider of knowledge, it often throws us off course as our intuition bumps up against the mind storehouse of old imprints and old fears.

    Now, you may be thinking to yourself, “I don’t really have intuition. I don’t get those gut feelings.” If this is the case, then you may be looking for the wrong thing. Intuition may not be a BIG BOOMING voice that shouts “Here I am! This is what you’re supposed to do!” It’s more often a subtle impulse. It sometimes tends to come back again and again until it gets our attention.

    So, here’s what we recommend. First, slow down, s-l-o-o-o-w down. Intuitive knowledge can’t come to an agitated mind.

    When you’re running around like a chicken with its head cut off, STOP, take a few breaths, and just ask for an intuitive answer. When we’re moving so fast, we are spinning. Instead, stop, take a breath, and ask your higher self, “What do you want me to know right now?” Nine times out of ten, we get a profound answer because the contrast between the spinning and the silence allows a portal to open and your intuition to speak.

    Your intuition is a muscle that needs to be exercised or it can degenerate. And, then it takes longer to get it back up and running. As they say, “Use it or lose it!” We send you much love and wish you many miraculous intuitive experiences as you slow down, breathe, and become attuned with your higher self.

    Please comment below and share your experiences of following your intuition…

  • The Healing Power of Nature

    The Healing Power of Nature

    Today’s Miracle Moment is about the healing power of nature…

    Dr. Sue and I (Marci) are in standing in the midst of beautiful nature around us. Whenever we connect deeply with nature, we’re moved by the experience of inner wholeness we feel from that connection.

    We invite you to pay attention to and connect with nature in a different way than you may be used to. Not just in an “Oh, my gosh, look how beautiful that is” way. Instead, experiment with dropping down inside yourself and communing with nature from a deeper place within. You’ll begin to sense the difference between appreciating how amazing nature is and actually feeling a part of it.

    Take a walk in the woods and feel what’s going on. Take a look at a flower growing up from the earth and watch that meticulous, miraculous demonstration of infinite possibility that happens just by nature unfolding. The seasons—spring fall, winter, summer—each of these are different expressions of your own wholeness. Allow what you’re experiencing to be an unfoldment of this miraculous power of nature. When you do, you start to vibrate as Nature herself. As that energy comes more alive in you, infinite possibility pours through.

    When you connect with nature, you connect with your own inner nature. It’s healing, relaxing, opening, expanding.

    Now, you may not live in a place where there’s a lot of nature around you. Yet, wherever we are, there’s some nature to connect with—the sky, the stars, the sun, the clouds, the rain. Allow yourself to feel connected to nature all around you, and you will feel more connected to your own inner nature.

    There is a wholeness that is trying to pour through you. Allow your wholeness to reveal itself and to shine.
    We leave you with a great quote by Albert Einstein…

    “Look deeply into nature and you will understand everything better.”

    We send you much love and wishes this week for feeling deeply connected to the nature around you and to your own inner nature.

    Please comment below and share your thoughts about how the power of nature impacts your life…