All my life I have heard of what separates people. I have heard how different you are from me. I have heard how different this person is from that one. How beliefs and customs are so very different amongst countries. Religions that divide by thinking their way is the only way.

When do I start to hear how similar people are? Where we are at now, we have more similarities with each other than ever before. Actually, maybe we have always had similarities but have been unable to acknowledge how similar we all actually were.

Sure people may look different, act different, externally seem different. This is what makes people individual, special and unique. However, there are underlying principles, wants and needs that are all so similar. Right now people are hungry! Not only for food. People are hungry for connection. They are hungry for meaning. For purpose. People want love. They want support. They want validation. They want to be able to express themselves freely and creatively.

When will we start to look at what we have in common with others instead of how we are different? How many times have you looked at someone or heard someone talk and after said to yourself…”wow, I am nothing like them!” The truth is, to be a whole person, you have to have a little of that in you. When you can recognize that place in you that is able to identify with the other person you seem to think you don’t have anything in common with, then you can feel compassion.

In times that seem as challenging as the ones we are in, how can we bring people even closer? Let them in so we can all be vulnerable together instead of standing tall when some may feel short.

The feeling of us all being connected is one of the most powerful things on this planet for you would not do to another what you would not want for yourself. Would you? How would you treat yourself walking down the street? Would you look up and say hello? At work? Would you lose your temper or have more patients? Sitting in traffic when someone has to cut in front of you to get to the other lane? If you saw yourself homeless on the street, would you think twice about giving them a dollar contemplating what they would use that dollar for or would you part with it thinking if that were me, I would want my fellow man to help me out?

I ask these questions to evoke thought. I ask these questions to bring our hearts together for the only way I know how to change separation is to be the connection. Connection, contrary to popular belief is not a noun; it is a state of being.

Have you ever felt separate from something or somebody? Do you remember how that feels? Well, this is how the world has been for a long time now. A way that we can all be the balance of this for the world is by starting with ourselves. When we feel connected and are being connected, there is no room for separation. It is just an illusion. If you knew that there was no separation, would you feel differently about a dearly departed loved one? Would you even experience loss in the same way? Maybe you wouldn’t experience loss at all because if there is no separation, then you are not separate from any thing or any body.

Today, be aware of any places you feel or see separation. When you do, be the polarity. Be the balance that you wish to see. Gandhi said to be the change you wish to see in the world. This holds so much power for you are already what you wish to become. It is already within you. Feel the power of this. Take a deep breath and breathe that in! You are already what you wish to become.

Channel it to remember who you already are…and watch the world change before your eyes!

What does freedom mean to you?

I’m sure everyone has their own version but it can be a really powerful question.
I spent a small part of the 4th of July meditating on what freedom means to me. First I thought of the world and how I want everyone to experience freedom. Then what came in was “you cannot control anyone else’s freedom, but you can control your own. Change yourself and you change the world.” Even though I have heard this before conceptually, it seemed different hearing it in my meditation. I then pondered what it meant to feel freedom and I came up with this…CHOICE. Freedom is having a choice. Even in situations that I’ve been in where I have felt I have no choice or something was being done to me…I still had a choice. The choice lies in how I CHOOSE to react to what is being done. This is a way of feeling freedom in a situation that looks shackling.

When I understood and had a clear definition of what freedom meant to me, I suddenly felt very free. Once I realized that my choice was to sit and meditate about freedom so I could send that back to the planet, I felt empowered. The fact that I am making my own choices in every moment opened up infinite possibilities of where I choose to go to next. Even my breath felt free in the fact that no one or no thing else could control it except my own spirit.

I ask again, what does freedom mean to you? What does it feel like? Look like?

The more specific you are the closer you can become to that which you long for.
Maybe it’s eating a meal you want to eat, taking a walk when you want to take it, telling someone that you love them, being told that you are loved, simply stilling yourself to feel your own divinity and power, knowing that in the end no one has any control over you that you do not allow.

How does freedom show up in your life? Celebrate all the ways that you do feel free in, instead of all the ways you do not. By feeling gratitude and even celebrating the ways in which you feel free will create a world of free dominion to move with grace and agility.

As an exercise, put some awareness on a couple things allow you to experience freedom. Then, do more of those things and see how you feel. Even in something mundane like cleaning or doing dishes, realize that you are making a choice to do those dishes! You could just let them sit there and pile up, but you are choosing to do them for how you might feel afterward. Being able to see that we make thousands of choices a day puts us in a place of being captain of our own ship.

So now the question becomes…where would you like to sail to?

Synchronicity- Coincidence of events that seem to be meaningfully related, conceived in Jungian theory as an explanatory principle on the same order.

Has anything ever happened in your life that you felt was just too coincidental, too perfect to have happened at that very moment?

If you believe that everything is mere coincidence, you probably do not believe in synchronicity. If you believe in synchronicity and everything happening in perfect order, then coincidences may not exist in your world.

Have you ever played a game that I like to call “connecting the dots?”

This is when you look back at things in your life and point out some different experiences that happened that might have baffled you in the moment, but in retrospect, if they didn’t happen you would not be where you are today. When some events are identified then you can playfully connect those events together in a chain till they create a link between them all.

I remember a time not so long ago upon my spiritual journey where I was really frustrated at a lack of clairaudience (ability to hear voices beyond our realm). I seriously wanted to hear a voice from the heavens talk to me, tell me what my answers should be. Didn’t have to be out loud, I would have settled for a whisper or an inner voice! I would even ask a question and then wait in meditation to hear the answer.
Nothing! I was going along being frustrated for quite some time till I got a very gentle message. The message was this…

After you ask your question or ask for guidance, be aware of all the things around you and that come into your field of consciousness.
Then the question was asked…Randy, does synchronicity happen in your life? I quickly said “oh yes! It happens in my life everyday. Everyday I see something that is synchronistic and those are the times that I feel the happiest because I can feel the magic and wonder in the world when things come together like that!”

Then the light bulb went of in my head, I was absolutely getting my questions answered and the guidance I so desperately wanted…it just wasn’t coming in the form I had wanted! I was so rigid in how I thought those messages should be coming to me that I overlooked EVERY other way information was coming in!

It’s like the line from Ferris Bueller’s day off, “life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it!”

Stated simply, I believe that synchronicity happens all the time. It can be shown in very subtle ways such as you thinking about someone you haven’t heard from in a while and they call you the very next day. Or it can come in ways not so subtle like if you weren’t in the exact spot at that exact moment, you would not have met someone or something completely different would have happened.

Play around with this exercise of “connecting the dots” and see what you notice. I would love to hear some of your experiences as I know that my own experiences in feeling the power of synchronicity has allowed me to feel my connection to all and to truly see life here as something wonderful and magical even when it can feel heavy and dark. This can be a life line to a ray of sunshine or an opportunity to crawl out of a quagmire to be free.

Maybe, there is an important reason you are reading this.

Maybe, just maybe…you are experiencing synchronicity in your life through these words right now…

Have you ever judged someone unfairly? Better yet, have you ever been judged unfairly?

For years and years people have been judging others on religion, race, sexual orientation, appearance, personality and so much more, yet where has this gotten us?

In some form or another, everyone makes a judgment about somebody else in the course of a day. Even though that may be a part of what human nature has been, I do not feel that as we unite as a nation, this will support where we are moving to. At least I hope not!

The old expression “don’t judge a book by its cover” is profound in that essentially, that is what so many of us do.

I have a first hand experience in being judged simply for my last name, how much money people think I have, how my family is, or what I am like in my personal or professional life. One of the lessons I have learned early on is NOT to judge people because I know the other side of that and it is not a pleasant feeling.

Maybe you know this feeling by having done something that you wish your friends or family would not judge you for?

Do you ever wish that people would look at you for who you are inside, not always what shows in an external reflection?

I get asked a lot why I am even a life coach in the first place because I probably don’t have to work, don’t need the money and don’t need to be doing something like that. At least that is some of what I have heard.

My reality is that I DO have to work, I DO need money to live and I do need to be doing what I do because it is what is in my heart and soul. It is what drives me when I wake up in the morning. That is like telling a dancer not to dance or an artist not to paint. Working with people is what I love to do and that is, in turn, what I work with people in doing…connecting to their passion. What is in their heart. Not how something may seem on the outside but what is in the inner stillness that is waiting to burst forth.

Judgments can be as misleading as a New York City building. It may look one way from the outside, but the excitement comes from not knowing what exactly lies within. The true gift of what everyone has to share is not the graffiti walls or shiny picket fences but the rooms that are lived in and slept in; inside the place. It is the feeling of warmth from the fire place that is sat around while love is shared and memories are made.

How many times have you judged yourself too harshly?

This is equally, if not even more important relating to yourself. Judging yourself does not help and only exacerbates feelings of guilt or wrong doing.

It takes an old habit to go into judgment; it takes awareness to pause before a judgment is made.

If you can remember a time that you have been judged and how that felt, then you may have compassion and pause before you pass judgment again.

A world without judgment is a world without separation…

I get asked this question all the time. I have to be honest, before I became a life coach, I had only heard the term once or twice and that was on Oprah!
This is not what I normally blog about but since I have received so many questions regarding this, I decided to write this.

I will do my best to answer this in a current and relevant way that may be easily assimilated.

Have you wanted to do something and got really excited at the thought of doing it, but when you explored it further it became too overwhelming and you thought…“I don’t think I can do this” and then gave up?

Life coaching can get you past the overwhelm and put steps in place for you to achieve that very dream.

Are there some days where you walk around and ask yourself “Why am I here?” “What is my purpose for being here?” Do you have a knowing that you are here for more and you feel that you are not living that?

Life coaching is where all of these things are explored and figured out.

Are there relationships that you have that completely stress you out and you feel that you give more than you get?
Do you feel like you are stuck in something and it is hard to break free?
Are you able to completely be you and speak your truth in all situations?

Life coaching can empower you to be stronger and know what it is you want in every moment so you can be your true self with anyone and everyone. Coaching can enable you to become “unstuck” and free flowing!

Some people may have an idea that life coaching is like therapy but really it can be very different. Therapy delves into the past, where life coaching focuses on the present.
This process consists of team work between you and your coach.
CEO’s of major companies have coaches, entrepreneurs have coaches, artists, actors and musicians may have a coach, and the list goes on…

In a nutshell, Coaching is meant for you to live your most authentic life you can and to figure out, who you are, where you want to go, and how you want to be…then it is about simply BEING YOU.

Take 30 seconds today to honor yourself for being here and for being who you are, you are worth it!