Butterfly Balance Wellness Center

Being of Service

“There’s no greater purpose
than service to others.”
~ Socrates, the Peaceful Warrior movie

I've been giving the topic of Service a lot of thought lately. At the Unitarian Universalist church that I attend in West Seattle, we have a unison affirmation each week that says in part "And service is [this congregation's] prayer." So what exactly is "service"?  The first definition at Dictionary.com is "an act of helpful activity; help; aid: to do someone a service."

I think we often focus on the fact that being of service to others is simply a benefit to the others, and not to the person performing the service. But I think that if the service is genuinely given/performed from the heart, it can be so incredibly beneficial for the person doing the serving as well.

When I originally gave thought to Service in my own life, I thought about what we often call service industries - jobs where we serve others. One of the reasons that I enjoy my work through the Butterfly Balance Energy Healing Center and Health Kinesiology is that I love working with people to help them to improve their life. The gift of doing that work is reflected in a focus and peace I had never found in another job before.

Just over a year ago I spent some wonderful retreat time working with a dear friend, Daria Boissonnas, who is the director for the Global Institute for Awakening (which I highly recommend). Daria is a gifted healer who told me about the Peaceful Warrior film, which I'd never seen before. The quote that I started this post out with was one that she shared with me, and it has stayed with me ever since.

Daria helped me to reframe the idea of being in service and being a healer. Why could my work in a law firm not be a work of service? There are days when it is difficult because I'll be typing all day long, hand in the work, and the attorney will delete half of it and start over again. It felt like such a waste of time to me, and I pretty much felt rejected and undervalued, as if my time was worthless enough to just delete it. But Daria helped me to reframe it in a different way: that I am being asked to do a certain task as a service to the attorney, and what I have done helps him to the next level of doing his own job - and helps him to think clearer about his intention. So I am serving him and helping him, and to look at it this way made it feel more valuable to me, and less irritating.

Even something as simple as holding a door for someone can be an act of Service. All my life I have held doors open for the person behind me. And I've realized that a great majority of those people don't say thank you, they just take the door, or they sometimes expect me to hold it open for them. Being a native New Yorker, I can have a sarcastic streak at times, and if someone didn't say thank you, I'd no doubt say something snarky like "you're welcome" in an annoyed tone. But why? Did I hold the door open just because I wanted a pat on the back? "Good job, Sue - you should be rewarded for your good deed?" Well, no . . . that wasn't my motivation. Shouldn't service be because you want to serve, not to get something back or having an ulterior motive? Shouldn't the motivation BE the service itself, doing something that you think is the right thing to do?

Today I held the door open for still another person who did not acknowledge it. I smiled anyway and knew that all was right in the world at that moment.

How do YOU incorporate Service into your life? How does it make you feel?

 

 

 

Mindful Spending

I just finished reading this really interesting blog post about Mindful Spending that I wanted to share.

Mindful spending is something I've only started really implementing in the past few years. A great deal of my life was spent pulling out credit cards a bit too freely, running up debt, and confusing wants for needs. I've done a lot of soul searching about the whys of what I'd done in the past, and why that couldn't continue anymore. I'm grateful to have righted the situation before things got worse than they were, and learning to live within my means.

But this post I read reminds me that Mindful Spending isn't just watching how much you spend, but also considering the intent behind what you spend - putting your money where your mouth is, if you will. From the article:

Mindful spending is a way of treating yourself, your community, and your money with respect. 

Mindful spending begs you to consider each dollar you spend an extension of your personal values, creating an individual economy that centers on what you love and not what society tells you you have to have. It means choosing not to spend money at all sometimes, choosing to spend more on high-quality, well-crafted items that support your community, and choosing to spend less on items that commercialism has put an unnecessary price tag on.

It really did make me reflect on how I spend my money. One of the biggest changes I've made is in how I spend my food dollars. I used to always look for the bargain - spending a great many years eating cheap, processed food (ramen noodles, anyone?). I remember in my first apartment with my best friend Ben, we used to say that we drank nothing but soda because it was cheaper than milk and juice. I bet that's still true today (although I don't drink milk or soda anymore, so I can't say for sure). But now, I really think about the quality of what I buy, how it's processed and where it comes from. Sure, I still buy processed foods from time to time, but I look at ingredients - if the ingredients are written in 5 pt. font so they can fit all 100 ingredients (chemicals), I just put it back on the shelf. I deserve better than that. I shop at the local PCC Market (food co-op/health food store) and invest in local, organic foods when I can.

Even a choice of store reflects on mindful spending. There is a store that I've browsed in that sells gemstones, rocks, and various other natural items. The prices are so insanely low that you just know that they have to using some sort of slave labor to obtain these items. I love the items in the store, but I refuse to buy any of it to support these prices that must likely reflect unfair trade.

Another example is a a major retailer that two years ago was selling king size flannel sheet sets for $20. I really needed sheets, and who doesn't like cheap prices? So I bought them. But now that I need more sheets, I'm having a hard time with the concept of $20 king sized flannel sheets. Think about the material and the workmanship that goes into making a king-sized set of sheets. I have a hard time thinking of ethics and fair trade when prices are that low.

For me, making the choice to not purchase is living in integrity and by my values.

Not all my choices are so virtuous. I'll be first to admit I still run through a drive-thru from time to time or buy some worthless junk I don't need, but I'm trying to make those events the exception and not the rule.

What does YOUR spending say about your personal values?

 

 

Stenciling Storm Drains & Protecting Waterways and Wildlife

I never gave much thought to the sewer storm drains growing up. It was implied that it was not really different than a garbage can. If you can't find a garbage can, then throw it into the sewer - that's what I did growing up and into adulthood. I always figured it was better than the alternative of just throwing it on the ground. (Of course, the real alternative would have been to hold onto it until you find a proper garbage can, but that never occurred to me.) If someone had only told me sooner that I was potentially harming (or killing) fish and wildlife, and contaminating our waterways with all the trash I'd thrown into the sewer in my lifetime, I never would've done it - or at least stopped sooner than I did.

Following up on yesterday's post about medicine disposal and why not to put it into the drains/sewer/trash, I learned today about something that the City of Seattle is doing to help raise awareness.

Apparently, you can become a volunteer to stencil a storm drain with:

Dump No Waste
Drains to Stream, Lake or Bay

I've actually seen similar stencils around town, now that I think of it:

 If every drain had a stencil like that, no one could claim ignorance as to where the waste is going. I think it's a brilliant idea!

From the Seattle Public Utilities Website:

"Some people believe that storms drain carry the waste to a sewage treatment for cleanup. Not true! Some drains go directly into the nearest stream or lake or Puget Sound, and so do the hazardous chemicals, pesticides, paints, antifreeze and used motor oil people pour down storm drains every year.

The Seattle Aquarium estimates that more than 2 million gallons of used motor oil ends up in Puget Sound each year. That’s enough to fill a medium-sized tanker! But even small amount of oil can smother fish eggs and developing shellfish in our lakes and streams. Just 1 pint of oil causes a slick the size of 2 football fields."

Isn't that disturbing?  I'm going to call to become a volunteer to stencil drains in my neighborhood, and hope that those of you in Seattle will do so as well.

And if you're not in Seattle, I urge you to consider calling your local municipality and see if they have a similar program, or if you can start one. Or at the very least, think of the environment, consider this information and do NOT use storm drains for trash disposal.

 

 

The Business Side of Healing

As a healer, all I've wanted to do is get out there and work with people to help them heal and be the very best they can be. My impulsive Aries nature would agree - just get out there and do it already! For better or worse, the part of me that's worked in corporate law for 29 years (that long? really?) knows better, and knows that there is a practical business side to all of it as well.

When I talk about  business, I'm not talking about the money making aspect of business. Sure, that's nice too - I plan on supporting myself with my passion. But there are certain legalities in terms of running a business, and all that stuff has had me bogged down for a bit, making my creativity and passion take a back seat.

My background in corporate law has been most helpful in terms of leading me to the correct resources. Seattle SCORE, affiliated with the US Small Business Administration, gives personal, one-on-one counseling to small business owners (or people considering small business), and best of all it's free. If you're not in Seattle, you can find their national site here and search by zip code.

I am thrilled to announce that I am now officially licensed by the State of Washington and the City of Seattle to do business legally under the name Butterfly Balance! Today I also set up my bank accounts for my business. It was so important for me to work in integrity - to do things legally, and to pay taxes on the money I earn. 

Now that most of that pesky business stuff is out of the way, now I can focus my attention on helping people and getting the word out about my practice.

Stay tuned for an announcement soon about the Butterfly Balance Open House!

Is This The Way Things Were Meant To Be?

Charlie Thistle has worked 20 years at the Department of Normality. One gray day fades into the next until one night he wrestles with the question, "Is this the way things were meant to be?"

I receive DVDs each month from Spiritual Cinema Circle. To borrow words from their website, each DVDs". . . includes a mixture of features, shorts and documentaries that explore spirit, spirituality, existence, morality, compassion, the power of the mind, metaphysics and other enriching topics that take your personal journey further."

Here is a link to a short movie called Charlie Thistle, as described above. The link will ask you to sign up for their service. There is no obligation to do so in order to watch the film, nor do I get any incentive for passing this information on to you. I am sharing it because I thought it was an interesting, short film about what can happen when we step outside of our comfort zone.  I also love the films I receive each month from Spiritual Cinema Circle and would recommend checking it out. If you're a person who enjoys what I share here on my blog, you might enjoy this as well.

I've always been a person that others have described as "marching to the beat of a different drummer." I think it's part of  living in integrity to follow your own path. And once you do, it's hard to go back to "normal" - or others' perception of what is allegedly normal. Charlie Thistle's experience echoes this as well.

Hope you enjoy the film. Let me know what you think of it.

"New" & "Natural" Sweetener (Which is Neither)

I just read this really disturbing article about how the makers of aspartame (a/k/a Nutrasweet and Equal) is rebranding their product with a new name and under the guise of being a "natural sweetener."

Aspartame has been renamed and is now being marketed as a natural sweetener

Friday, February 12, 2010
by: Ethan Huff, citizen journalist

In response to growing awareness about the dangers of artificial sweeteners, what does the manufacturer of one of the world's most notable artificial sweeteners do? Why, rename it and begin marketing it as natural, of course. This is precisely the strategy of Ajinomoto, maker of aspartame, which hopes to pull the wool over the eyes of the public with its rebranded version of aspartame, called "AminoSweet".

Over 25 years ago, aspartame was first introduced into the European food supply. Today, it is an everyday component of most diet beverages, sugar-free desserts, and chewing gums in countries worldwide. But the tides have been turning as the general public is waking up to the truth about artificial sweeteners like aspartame and the harm they cause to health. The latest aspartame marketing scheme is a desperate effort to indoctrinate the public into accepting the chemical sweetener as natural and safe, despite evidence to the contrary.

You can read the rest of this article here.

I think one of the biggest problems is that the term "natural" is essentially useless these days. "Natural" makes me think of unprocessed, healthy things. But "natural" is just a buzzword that only wants to make you think those things so you'll buy whatever is being advertised to you.

We need to be so diligent in reading packages and ingredients and knowing what we're putting into our bodies. And saying no to "frankenfoods" that are nothing more than processed crap that end up causing all kinds of unthinkable diseases years after we've all become addicted to them.

I have not eaten an artificial sweetener for about 7 years now. But this post isn't about proselytizing to you to give them up also. What I want to do is educate people who think they are getting something supposedly healthy. Or the person who gave up aspartame/Nutrasweet and instead will get this "new" sweetener, AminoSweet, not realizing it's the exact same thing. Eat what you want to eat, but at least be educated on what it is. Or in this case, what it isn't.

Choices, Assumptions, Realizations and Goals

I mentioned in a previous post that I had been in the East West Bookshop in Bothell and bought some used books. One of them was deeply discounted because it was highlighted, so it cost me $2 instead of the $12 list price; in fact, the cashier said they weren't even supposed to take the book to resell because of the highlighting, but the book was in such good condition otherwise that she took a chance. Apparently it had been on the table for an hour when I came by and snatched it.

The book is Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. I'd heard of this book a few times, most recently during our church Simplicity Circle, and a personal friend (also involved in that circle) had recommended it. Seems fitting that I'd get a book on "financial independence" for a $10 discount. :)

This book has been really amazing. I've done a lot of work on finances and debt and spending and simplicity, so some of this was preaching to the choir and/or reinforcing what I've already known and done. But some of it was such an entirely different way of thinking of money and energy and really got me thinking. And excited about some of the things that were coming up as I got in touch with my thoughts about finances and working and life.

I've spent a lot of my life in debt. I'm still in debt, and for a significant amount still. Like half my annual salary (if we exclude the new car loan). The good news is that I'm now living within my means, and have been for the past two years - I have not incurred any new debt in that time that I have not paid off at the end of the month. And I'm paying more than minimums for my debt. Not much more, but more. And all my debt is at very low interest (6.9% or less), so I am grateful for that.

So, here's the thing. While it's really fantastic that I don't go deeper into debt, I could be doing a much better job of getting out of it. I spend way too much money still. Doesn't matter that I can afford to pay it all off. I've still got that albatross of debt hanging over my head. Some of the things I spend money on monthly are truly necessities - like rent and utilities - but there are things I don't need and/or could cut down on. Eating out, for instance. We spent WAY too much money eating out. Most of it is for boredom's sake, or laziness. Convenience, I guess. Hey, that's fine from time to time. But it's become way too much of the norm.

A friend and I were talking this morning about this, and she was saying how eating out became less "special" when it became routine. She's right! There's no excitement to a meal out anymore (other than the excitement that I don't have to cook it or clean up after it). And you can't say that I don't fill my house with convenience foods - our freezer is full of quick-to-heat things from Trader Joe's, for instance. So I really could have dinner on the table in less than 20 minutes, even if I had to boil water for a pasta side dish. Part of me feels like if I don't eat out, I will feel deprived. But I started to reframe that today, and realized that every dollar I spend eating out is one less dollar I can't pay to my debt. And every month that I do not get out of debt is one more month I have this debt haunting me, reminding me of past problems and issues. So what if I start making the choice to not eat out as often because I am making the choice to pay my bills faster?

Take lattes, for example. I never drank coffee, ever, back in New York. But for some reason I am a latte junkie here. I have one at least 5 days a week. It costs me $4.30 and I usually leave the $0.70 as a tip. So that's $5 a day. Times 5 days a week. Times 52 times a year. That's $1,300 a year, not counting any snacks I might also buy along with the latte, or any lattes I might have on weekends. Wow. So part of me justified that because Antoinette, the barista at the coffee shop in our atrium at work, is one of the most positive, sweetest people I've ever met. She remembers everyone, and everything about them. I go to see her and she is just beaming. Not too many people do that when I see them. It's nice to be welcomed and fawned over and given this steaming hot cup of rice milk and espresso. But then I realized that if I walk down to the atrium to read a book at lunch (like I did today), and pass Antoinette, she still calls my name and waves and smiles and wishes me a good day. No purchase required. Hmmm . . . So I decided this week that I was going to stop having lattes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That simple act of skipping 2 days would save over $500 a year!! So rather than look at it as deprivation that I didn't get a latte today, I decided to look at it as financial freedom - it's $5 closer to getting out of debt.

I'm in this line of work that just sucks the life out of me. I am not happy. As this book referred to it, I'm "making a dying" as opposed to "making a living." Very true. If I hit the lottery, I'd quit in a nanosecond. What would I rather be doing? Health Kinesiology (I've taken 3 levels now and just scheduled level 4 for September) and Reiki (I'm already attuned for level 2 of that and can practice it) and other alternative health pursuits. When I'm working with a client, I stop looking at the clock, and I'm filled with joy. But my assumption has always been that I "can't" quit my "day job" (the one that's not a joy) because "I can't afford it." Well, that got me to thinking about how much a year I pay to pay off debt. I pulled out my PDA and used the calculator, and the amount was staggering. If I didn't have the debt, I could easily earn half my salary, and I could live quite well on it. It was really quite the revelation. Then I figured out, if I charged $X a session and had X clients, how much would I make. And it pretty much came out to around the same figure as what I have left when I ignore the money I paid to debt!! This was a huge realization for me. And got me very excited. Because suddenly, I realized that I mostly likely could support myself with my passion, not what I'm doing now. My current line of work would be able to be done through a temporary agency too, if I ever wanted to supplement my income from other things. But, to get to this point, I need to get out of debt.

I will be 50 in 4 short years. I have decided that my goal is that all my debt will be paid by then, if not far sooner. I am going to reevaluate what I spend, and what value I get from it. I can probably pay it in 2 years, but I want to have a realistic goal. Your Money or Your Life talks about how money is energy, and how our life is energy, and we're trading our life energy when we make these financial decisions. Is that latte worth how long it takes me to work for the money for it? When I think of the alternatives, it really isn't. I'm not going to slash my budget insanely and go into deep deprivation mode. I'm going to take baby steps, keeping my eye on the prize - my financial independence from this job. And a time when I can walk away and do what I'm passionate about. Naturally, I'll have to work on that new career simultaneously, but it can be done. I'm already doing some work with that.

Interestingly, in my HK1 class, my teacher used me as a demonstration for something called Adjunctive: Work. This is asking the body questions (using muscle testing) about a particular thing (Work, Play, Sleep and/or Rest, in this case), and when we worked up the Work category, she said that my body's energy wanted to work part time. I balked at that at the time, it simply couldn't be done. But I'm starting to open myself up to the possibilities. Right now, no, it's not possible. Well, I guess it is, but I'm choosing not to because I want money to pay these debts down quickly. But it's nice to have options. And it's nice to know that my body was telling me all along the things that my brain is starting to catch up to. :) This is a work in progress; I don't have all the answers. It also won't resolve itself overnight. But I'm feeling optimistic now. I have choices I can make. I am realizing that my assumptions were incorrect. I've got some goals. I feel good about all of that!