My own journey through pregnancy (for the first time) began this past summer! As I journey through the unfamiliar territory of pregnancy, and creating life from within, I have been learning lots, growing and stretching (not only physically) lots and I have most certainly been humbled by the experience that women before me and alongside me have been experiencing since the beginning of time.

To bring further inspiration, enrichment and support to this journey, I have created a new group starting February 22nd (and open any week to new women), for women in pregnancy in Montreal looking to commune with others like themselves on the road to creating new life and motherhood.  All the details are below.  I look forward to meeting you!

The Pregnancy Circle

Do you want to join a gathering of women on their journey through pregnancy and into motherhood ?

Come join us!  Open any and all weeks. Beginning Tuesday  Feb. 29th, 2011  at 6pm- $15/circle- you can come to any circle and all circles, no commitment required

Facilitated by Julie Cusmariu, Life Coach, Intuitive Consultant and Pregnant!

*Join us any week, or all weeks- Starting February 29th Tuesdays 6-7:30 p.m. $15/circle. In Westmount.

Rsvp with Julie : julie@juliecusmariu.com .Please rsvp by Monday of every week by 11am

Do you want time in your week to tune out from the outside world and tune in to your experience of pregnancy? Do you want time to honor your unique journey and connect to other women going through the same rite of passage into motherhood? Do you want to feel supported, inspired, enriched and empowered in a community of women? If you would, then you are not alone…

This group, facilitated by Julie Cusmariu, Life Coach and Intuitive Consultant is pregnant for the first time and has created The Pregnancy Circle as a space for connection with other women seeking a supportive community interested in sharing and honoring their unique journey- trials, tribulations, grace, grit, joy, fear, thrill, love- all of it!

Come join the pregnancy circle and experience encouragement, enrichment and support to empower your unique journey:

You can expect to experience:

• a community of women just like you, at different stages of their pregnancy
• positive, enriching support  to encourage your process and unique pregnancy journey
• recognition and celebration to support the milestones of your pregnancy
• discussions on relevant topics sourced from favourite pregnancy books and media
• a safe and supportive place to  honestly and consciously express your fears, hopes, and challenges
• Exercises that include meditation and visualization to soothe, inspire, heal and relax
• guest experts  on nutrition, holistic care- emotional, energetic, spiritual, physical

Pregnancy, from Julie’s experience thus far, is a most humbling one! It can bring up many different emotions and experiences that can really stretch and grow you not just physically, but emotionally, spiritually and mentally. In this transformative, creative and transitional time of pregnancy, (where women since the beginning of time have gone before), each woman’s experience whether for the first or fourth time is unique and personal and merits acknowledgement, attention and celebration. It is this experience that you are going through that you are invited to bring and share with you at The Pregnancy Circle.

Whatever trimester you are in, wherever you choose to give birth, and with whomever, you are invited to join The Pregnancy Circle.  Every Tuesday night from 6-7:30 pm there will be a place for you in the circle to share, receive, celebrate, learn, and empower your journey through pregnancy.

*Join us any week, or all weeks- Starting February 29 Tuesdays 6-7:30 p.m. $15/circle. In Westmount.

Rsvp with Julie here . Please rsvp by Monday of every week by 11am.

To join the circle or inquire further email Julie here. Spaces are limited.

“Circle is the form of endlessness, continuation, calming down, pacifying. In a circle there is no beginning or end- once you’re in the circle, you’re there, participating in wholeness. Nobody is superior, no one is better than anyone else. We sit together in our differences in one nice round shape”. Margaret J. Wheatley taken from her foreward to the book The Circle Way, A Leader in Every Chair by Christina Baldwin & Ann Linea

**Also, be sure to check out Julie’s NEW 6 part radio series beginning Feb 23rd: Conscious Pregnancy, Empowering Birth – a woman’s rite of passage into creating new life featuring renown experts and pioneers such as Christiane Northrup, MD, Pam England, Sheryl Paul, Sheva Carr and more

www.consciouspregnancyempoweringbirth.com

We live in an age where information is coming at us from all directions.  Whether it be from our blackberry, computer, cell phone or twitter account, we’re all tapped in, tuned up and ready for the next piece of information to come our way. While I have no objection to the fast and furious ways about which we can operate in a day, I wonder how more more we can get plugged in and revved up. I wonder how much more cloaking of  this ever thickening layer of uncertainty we can muster.  Our   “I need to know now” society and state of mind that we collectively share is certainly familiar to me and I would imagine to most. But what happens to this mind when there is no way of knowing and there is no certainty to hold on to?  Is there a way to find a balance between the “need to know now” mind and the “I don’t know now” mind?

What if instead of not needing to know, we could allow the space to exist between the knowing and the not knowing? What if we could simply rest in that space and allow what is dismantling to fall apart and what is emerging to rise to the top?Whether it be a relationship or a job or the state of the economy, might it support us both individually and collectively to develop a quality of trust and patience within us as things rise and fall, and as things stir and then settle. In these times, can we allow the natural intelligence and order of the universe to continue operating as it does as we furiously try to find our foothold and safe place amidst it all. Can we feel assured that there is a larger more peaceful force within us and surrounding us that always has wisdom and order as its backdrop. If we alleviate the pressure within us to know, perhaps we might discover something totally brilliant in the absence of this need to know. Perhaps without the pressure we can instead in its place find ease and peace?

The space that Joan Borysenko  calls (in her book ‘Saying Yes to Change’) the space between what is “no longer” and what is “not yet”  is such a crucial space and time for the emergence of curiosity and discovery and for creations to begin taking form.  Might we be able to exchange our panic and fear of the unknown for wonder and trust? Perhaps we can even rest in this not knowing, and believe in this space as a place for incredible possibility and opportunity.  I know one thing for certain, I always love to be reminded of this:

“Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.” –

Gangaji shared so many important words with us over the 5 day silent retreat at Kripalu last week. As we entered into silence Gangaji invited us to discover the silence within and experience what is already inside of us, at the core of us. She invited us to stop and be still. To stop the searching, stop the doing and stop the trying. We were encouraged to simply BE.

The retreat named after her most recent book, The Diamond in Your Pocket, was a 5 day journey into truth, inquiry and self-discovery. It was a moment by moment experience of discovering what exists beneath the layers of our thoughts and emotions. Gangaji invited us to consider the truth of who we are instead of believing the thoughts that dictate who we think ourselves to be. Undoubtedly, this is no easy task. And well, this is not a task at all. Nor is it something that can be done, it simply just is, and is meant to be experienced through a willingness to accept and surrender to what is already present.

Gangaji so gracefully and wisely created a space for us to inquire into the true nature of ourselves. Along this 5 day journey I experienced an array of emotions and thoughts that could easily be heard and felt in the silence. I also experienced a deeper connection and understanding to the nature of my true self and I witnessed others doing the same.

As the retreat was ending, Gangaji reminded us that we need not take 5 days away from home to encounter the gift of retreat. In fact we can retreat any time, anywhere. If we are willing to experience silence and what is always available to us in that silence, we simply need to take time out to stop, be still and inquire. It is in this silence that we can hear our intuition and connect to our infinite wisdom and essential nature.

When do you retreat from your day or from you week to check in with yourself ? Do you hear your intuition ? Do you trust yourself?

May you discover the beauty and wisdom of who you already are.

To learn more about Gangaji visit her website here.

There are so many wonderful videos of Gangaji you can watch on YouTube . In this one, Gangaji speaks about fulfillment. Enjoy.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1PSNlhn0Rk]

After watching author and teacher Byron Katie’s interview on Oprah’s SoulSeries webcast the other night (see link below), I was reminded of some important and powerful questions Katie uses in the process she calls The Work. These questions help individuals bring peace to their stressful thoughts and are simple and easy to use by everyone.

In my personal life and also professionally as a Life Coach and Intuitive Consultant, I benefit from asking these questions to inquire into my own thoughts. As I do this, I am naturally guided back to myself, back to my own wisdom and my own self-responsibilities.

I attended The 9 day school for The Work in April of this year and benefited profoundly from the experience. Because it is such a powerful process, I am always eager to be reminded of the tools that make it so meaningful. Watching Katie the other night reminded me of those tools: Simple yet profound questions used to inquire into our stressful thoughts to bring us greater peace and freedom.

One of the questions Katie invites us to ask through the process of The Work is :

Whose business am I in?

According to Bryon Katie’s The Work, there are 3 different types of business.

There is:

Your business

Other people’s business

God’s (reality) business

If you are experiencing stressful thoughts, it is likely you are in everyone else’s business other than your own. In Loving What Is (pg.4) Katie writes, ” If you are living your life and I am mentally living your life, who is here living mine? We’re both over there. Being mentally in your business keeps me from being present in my own”. The Work invites us to give the advice we’ve been giving out to others back to ourselves. When we do this, we can create our own happiness, our own peace and our own fulfillment from within.

The beautiful thing about The Work is that it takes you back to yourself and keeps you responsible for your thoughts, your choices and your actions. Only we can truly know what is best for us and only ‘they’ can truly know what is best for ‘them. Any time we offer others unsolicited advice we are in their business telling them how to live their lives when we would serve them and ourselves more by being in our own business.

On May 1st I wrote a blog post after having just returned from The Work. I wrote

There is no greater answer out there than the one we find within ourselves.

When we are in our own business, tending to our own lives, we become more self-aware and connected to the present moment. When we focus less on how other people should be living their lives we free up time and energy to be mindful and responsible for our own lives. The more present we are to ourselves, the more connected we are to our intuition. And when we listen to our intuition we connect to our inner teacher, for what lies within us is essential for our fulfillment.

May you enjoy the present moment and notice whose business you are in when you are not feeling at peace or at ease. Remember that being in your business serves to sharpen your intuitive connection and opens the doorway to your inner wisdom. When we do this, not only do we benefit, but everyone around us does as well.

Please feel encouraged to share your experiences below.

All the best!

Watch Byron Katie on Oprah’s Soulseries

Learn more about The Work here

According to Bruce Lipton, Ph.D, in his book The Biology of Belief and in his audio recording The Wisdom of Your Cells, “we are not victims of our genes” and ” our life is not pre-programmed”. In fact according to Lipton and the science of The New Biology, ” our thoughts, our beliefs, our minds, totally control our genes, our behavior and the life we experience”. We are therefore creators of our life and not victims of our genetic makeup.

Might I be hearing many sighs of relief?

I can’t remember how I came across the fascinating work of cellular Biologist Bruce Lipton, Ph.D but I know I was instantly intrigued and breathed my own sigh of relief when I delved deeper into the subject matter. Lipton explains in basic scientific terms, how our genes and our DNA do not control our Biology (though I have a couple of years of science education including Biology, Organic Chemistry and Physics, pure interest and an open mind is all that is required to benefit from his work). In fact Lipton, through the use of science, inspires and empowers the listener to know they are powerful creators and not victims of their lives. Listening to Lipton is easy on the ears. He is captivating and passionate about his findings and enthusiastically imparts important and transformative information for us all to have and use in our lives.

Fortunately for me I was able to hear Bruce Lipton speak over a weekend in Montreal two years ago. It was inspiring, powerful and enlightening. His research and findings are applicable to not only our individual Biology but to the ever evolving Biology of the human species on planet earth. He is a real treat to learn from and listen to and I invite you to spend time getting to know his important and compelling work on YouTube.com or SPIRITube.com. Here is a sample:

Part 1: The Biology of Perception : http://is.gd/NPU

Also refer to his web site www.brucelipton.com for more information and future workshops.

Enjoy. And may you find the power within you to affect lasting harmony and well-being in your own life and to our global community!

Have a wonderful week.

Julie