I was away over the new year and on New Year’s eve I was randomly asked by a TV reporter from the local TV network what my resolutions were for 2012.

Up until that point I hadn’t taken much time to think about it.  I don’t even remember what I replied, I know that it must have been something about me not being a big fan of new year’s resolutions, but since she was asking me, and since there was a camera staring me in the face, I figured why not take the opportunity. So it went something like this “continuing to take one day at a time and to keep practicing on bringing my awareness to the present moment”. Simple, yet a big enough task for the year!

The reporter then followed up by asking me if I believe in the effectiveness of resolutions and if I could share my thoughts on the topic. Not an unlikely question that I was surprisingly eager to respond to (despite being caught off guard as I was taking a pause in the warm sun with my 8 month old baby outside of Whole Foods).  Again, though I don’t remember specifically what I said, it must have been something along the lines of  ” if making new year’s resolutions is something you choose to take on then – ‘listen to your heart, have the resolutions be authentic and let this energy propel you each day, not just on the 1st day of the year”. I also must have added that it is indeed a good time to ride on the collective wave of energy often focused on how we can create feelings of renewal, rejuvenation and transformation for the coming year.

All this to say, this brief interview got me thinking again about resolutions. I then remembered I wrote a blog post last year around this time about the exact topic. It served me to read it again and thought I would include it below. Please feel welcome to leave your comments!

All the best to you for 2012!

4 Tips to create resolutions that last!

It’s that time of the year again…

Though goals and good intentions are welcome any day of the year, a fresh new start to the year is a good time to benefit from this collective wave of energy where we take stock and look ahead at what is to come in the following months. Though I believe it is important to always be mindful of what we want daily, what inspires us and in which direction we want to go, for many of us, this time of year adds extra gusto the the meaning of clean slate, goal setting and fresh start. Here are some tips I have put together that might lend some insight into creating resolutions (goals) that last for this New Year.

1. From the Heart: It is important your resolutions come from a genuine heart desire, not from “shoulds, coulds, have-tos, ought-to-do’s”.   Any wishful, ego-driven desires, often dictated by others, or the idealized image of ourselves, are generally not authentic and will likely fall by the way side. Instead can you shift your focus to what inspires you. To what you actually want to do but have not gotten around to doing. What energizes you and really matters to you? Try and dedicate your resolution and commitment to something of this nature, something that feels inviting and exciting, rather than dutiful and dreadful. Make it easy and unique to your natural expression, like a gift you are giving yourself, not an obligation or task to add to the already daunting ‘to-do’ pile!

2. Commit and Gain Support: Choose a close friend or family member and speak your resolution out loud.  Does it feel true?  Does it feel right?  Does the timing feel ripe?  These are all questions to ask yourself out loud, to ready yourself to get committed to your goal. And maintain this relationship with your friend/family for accountability, to help stay on track, focused and supported.

keep reading the 2 remaining tips by clicking below

3. Start small: According to Christine Carter, Ph.D. from the Greater Good Science Center the science of change suggests that the best way to make a change is to start with turtle steps, in other words, start small! Choose one goal and devote your time and awareness to it each day. Don’t overshoot the goal by projecting into the future three months from now, feeling it is unattainable and getting defeated before you get started. Start small, back up to a goal for the day or for the week and proceed from there. And remember with any change, we can often take one step forward and 2 steps back. We need to remember that it is the process that counts most not the end result. Carter also suggests that if we do keep stumbling upon defeat with this new goal, you may just need to make the goal easier.

4. Being and Feeling rather than Doing and Thinking:. The more we think we have to do something or have something to be happier, the farther away from attaining resolve we will be.  Who you are and what you feel  in the world is what creates your moment to moment satisfaction.   We need to change the way we perceive resolutions so they don’t lead to endless dissolution year after year! Try focusing on how you want to feel rather than what you have to do. For example: you may want to feel healthier this year, fitter, more energetic. Rather than setting a goal of losing 10 pounds by March, can you be curious about what would it would be like to feel healthier. Imagine what would be different in your life as a result of this new feeling. What would you be doing? What would you be feeling? What would be different? Spend time with this answer and allow it to expand within your consciousness as often as you like. And you may find this aligns you with the result of this goal more easily. For some the feeling of being healthy might look like adding an extra 20 minute walk to their day on one particular day, and taking a 15 minute cat nap the next. Can you be open to your commitment to this new feeling, rather than how it needs to happen and what it needs to look like and follow the flow and be in the process and enjoy it!?

To your well-being and discovery! Happy New Year!

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

‘Transformation through Transition’

Open to the possibilities before you…

After being married in June and going through a beautiful rite of passage through the wedding ceremony (archived and chronicled on my radio show), I am now going through another exciting and adventurous life transition. I am pregnant and due in the spring. I have been experiencing the importance of honoring each phase of these life transitions as they occur and know how important it is to take the time to consciously honor the processes and changes we encounter in our day to day life.

Arnold Ven Gennep, a Dutch Anthropologist and Joseph Campbell, American Mythologist and writer, both identified three different phases that make up any life transition. Campbell identified them as the 1) the separation 2) the initiation 3) the return . According to Campbell this was key to what he called the ‘Hero’s journey’. Van Gennep coined these transition phases with the term  ”rite of passage” and identified them as 1) letting go and separation 2) liminal stage (in-between) 3) re-incorporation-the return.

Always in the phase of creating and becoming, we pass through important milestones that sometimes get ritualized and celebrated and sometimes do not.  (This new coaching group starting at the end of January) , Transformation through Transition, was created to support your transition and transformation consciously. A space will be created for you to share and honor where you are at in your transition process while being coached by me and supported by others also moving through a certain life passage.

It is customary and very healing (as observed in various cultures throughout the world) to gather in a community and honor and mark these life transitions. This group will do just that  by providing coaching, support, celebration and acknowledgement on your journey to becoming

Collectively we are welcoming in the energy of 2011. This group beginning at the start of the year, will ride on the energy of the new year by coming together with the intention of Transformation through Transition. You will be celebrated, acknowledged and launched in to your greatest self as you inquire in to yourself and are curious about what is unfolding for you now at this time in your life.

I look forward to meeting you, supporting you and celebrating you on your journey.

January 26 – February 23, 2011  – 5 weeks of Group Coaching

Each group is limited to 8 individuals. Spaces are now available. Register by January 14th to receive the early bird price and to ensure your space.

For more information and to find out if this group is right for you visit here

“Follow the flow…trust….breathe…allow…surrender…relax…listen to yourself ”

Often easier said than done, but nonetheless these are wise and profound words I have often been advised to adpot and words I remind myself  of  daily. Certainly when I am in a state of flow and trusting the natural evolution of the day and life in general, greater ease arises (less struggle with reality) and I am more able to fall into a space of present moment awareness. This is a space which feels to me like a space inhabited by depth, richness and openness. It is a space that gives rise to one’s intuition (which is one’s truth) and is a space that feels right to be in to make better and more conscious decisions for one’s life.

This is the process of trusting your intuition and arriving at a peaceful acceptance of ‘what is’, as ‘what is’, is a moment really worth appreciating. It is a moment filled with a vastness beyond our imagination that holds the gentle whispers of our greatest evolution and unfoldment into the very next moment and then the next and then the next…

I came across this video of  Thomas Hübl who talks about intuition, flow, and tensions that arise physiologically when we don’t follow the flow in our lives. We have the capacity to release the tension within our bodies and in our lives and get unstuck. If we listen to our own wisdom and inner truth, it can happen.

Watch the short video here

( Audio is available for online streaming and download below).

Preparing for, and then engaging in a meaningful and important conversation with Andrew was undeniably soul -satisfying, deeply enriching and moving. In fact I have since listened to our conversation several times (and most recently while adding some music to the interview) and each time am elevated to new heights by the hope he invites us all to discover and take upon ourselves to realize, and by the sheer depth from which his words emanate.  Andrew Harvey is a renowned and distinguished mystical scholar, Rumi translator and explicator, poet, novelist, spiritual teacher, architect of Sacred Activism, and author of over 30 books. His newest book The Hope A Guide to Sacred Activism provided the basis for our conversation on Heart Beat.

In this conversation you will hear Andrew talk very personally and intimately about : Sacred activism- what we can do right now to become sacred activists and help birth a new world- suggested practices and disciplines to maintain hope and inspired action-why it is so important to live from our heart in these rapidly changing times- the importance of deep shadow work,  joy, love and justice and much more.

Please enjoy this conversation.