How's Your Spontaneity?

NEVER before have I ever been SO spontaneous!

I know, I know... I keep going off and not talking to you for periods of time.

But, tell me...

If you had an opportunity to pack a suitcase and be on an airplane one hour later heading to a beautiful island for two weeks, wouldn't you do it too? Well, OF COURSE you would!

That's precisely what happened to me over the Easter weekend. An email came with a last minute invitation, I thought about it for about an hour, took the following hour to race around the house and throw necessities into a suitcase and away I went to board my float plane. Synchronicity had it that I got the remaining seat on the plane and the last available room at the retreat center... was I meant to go, or what!

Never before have I ever been so spontaneous... and I loved it!

I've always thought of myself as very adaptable, able to change with the seasons and places, able to travel in style and also rough it in the jungle, too. NOW I can also say that I am able to make prompt and decisive choices for myself and be free-spirited like the wind. How I like these characteristics!

So where was I, you might be asking? Here...

For the THIRD time since September, I got to go to the Haven Institute to attend a powerful personal growth seminar, Phase Two. This time was especially exciting as I got to meet up with approximately eight friends that had been in my earlier programs. And, believe me, when we spend two weeks together as intensely as we do at Haven, friendships become very deep, very fast!

I even got to have my very first experience of kayaking, which was wonderful!

I am ever grateful to Richard for supporting me to go and do this life-changing work on myself at this time in my life. Having spent many months at Esalen (a famous growth center on the California coastline) years ago, and knowing the transformation possible, Richard has urged me to gift myself with this experience for a long time... and I'm doing so now. I've come home feeling so rich in so many ways.

So, I'm back... gradually catching up on life and reaching out again.

I hope you've been really well and that you might consider crazy spontaneity in your life, too. Talk about affirming!

Yes, I'll talk to you again soon, Carolyn...

no more travel until mid-May now, when we will go off to Atlanta, Georgia.

Go to www.life-balance-success.com for your copy of our BEST YOU Possible eBook with it's numerous great bonuses AND Relaxation MP3.

$27... that's all.

Carolyn's Christmas News!

Richard and I would like to wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Please click on the PLAY button of our special card below, clicking each of the three pages to read our Christmas News.

Thank you for your interest in our Work and Life Balance Blog... and especially for your friendship!

Warmly, Carolyn and Richard Clarke

Make a free ecard - it's easy!

Why Love Heals: How Friendships Keep You Healthy

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Are you wearing any green today? (Were Richard's Mom Amy still with us, she'd be celebrating her 107th birthday today... she was such a sweet lady, a real "Scottie"!)

A quick little update first and then I have an interesting article for you to read about the healing value of friendships.

Our newly completed eBook, "Becoming the BEST YOU Possible" and two bonuses have now been turned into PDF files, a necessary step for us to be able to deliver them through email... so this step is now ready for operation.

We're now working to make it possible to deliver our Relaxation guided meditation in the same way, for it to come into your computer as a sound file. We're also working to make our website able to facilitate the whole sale transaction for a seamless, easy purchase. Soon, soon, soon!

As you recall, I have emphasized the real importance of including friendships in our work and life balance equation. Thanks to MSN Lifestyle: Boomers for a good article posted today, entitled;

Why Love Heals: How Friendships Keep You Healthy
Written (well) By Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge, MD

Here are a few of the opening paragraphs...

"There is an actual, physical chunk of brain that runs your emotions called the limbic brain. You can trace its development back a hundred million years. You can see it on an MRI. Every second you spend with other people, your limbic brain is tuning in to them, being changed by their moods, and changing theirs in turn. It's a constant, life-affirming limbic dance.

Experimental psychologists have known for decades that we share moods. If you don't believe me, just think of the people who make you feel better simply by walking into a room. These sorts of interactions feel so good (directly and unconsciously) that we would wither away without them. This is why you should never underrate the emotional side of your life.

Women are better than men at keeping the limbic dance going by working to ensure that families stay connected as the years go by and by building lasting friendships and deep connections from the many different aspects of their lives. High school and college friends, friends from work, friends from raising children together, from neighborhood committees, from shared vacations -- sure, some of these bonds and friendships fall away as part of the natural cycle of growing and changing, but most women find new friendships to replace them. Women who don't find close friendships, who have trouble keeping up connections, need to make an effort to change those patterns.

Hundreds of research studies confirm that isolation hurts us and connection heals us through the same physical mechanisms as exercise and healthy diet. Blood vessels are measurably more elastic, the heart's ability to respond to extraordinary demands is higher, cardiac inflammatory protein levels are lower, and blood pressure response to exercise is better in more connected people. Their stress-hormone blood profiles are also measurably healthier than those of isolated people."

For the remainder of the article, click here...

http://boomers.msn.com/articleLHJ.aspx?cp-documentid=376471&GT1=9206

Enjoy! So, stay tuned for my next update.

Here's to getting together with your (green) friends today, afterall, it is Saturday and St. Patrick's Day, too.

Warmly, Carolyn

Inner Fitness(R) Programs

www.innerfitness.ca

www.a-balanced-life.com

Renewing Relationships

If you're visiting for the first time, welcome!

And if you are returning, thanks for coming back!

I hope that your holiday season has been infused with loved ones, tasty treats, friendship and a bit of meaningful magic. Richard and I are home again after being away for Christmas... seeing numerous friends that we've not seen for as much as seven years. We were amazed at how it was like no time had gone by, our connection still warm and strong after all those years.

You will recognize this... how there are people that come into our lives that are there for a period of time or circumstance and yet there are others that will be heart-connected forever, no matter the spacial distance or time between visits. Richard and I created the chance to see a few sweet friends we cherish on Christmas Day... and we now with a renewed commitment to see each other more frequently next time.

Our family Christmas of twelve was filled with much happy conversation, an awesome traditional turkey dinner, happy spirits and the greatest gift possible... Dad JUST home from the hospital after emergency appendix surgery.

Family and friendships are such vital ingredients to a balanced life! Did your family and friendship batteries get topped up this holiday? If not, there's always an opportunity to make the effort over New Years.

Now completely (and happily) pooped out after much socializing, long sleeps and refocussing my energy is in order. I'll talk to you again in a few days.

Warmly, Carolyn
Inner Fitness(R) Programs
www.innerfitness.ca

My Globe & Mail Newspaper Interview

Hi and welcome!
I am pleased to have been interviewed recently for an article, published in the
The Globe and Mail Newspaper (based out of Toronto, Canada)
Thursday, December 14, 2006

Warm thanks to writer, Nicole Dunsdon for her warm interview skills and her articulate writing ability.

The article starts off interviewing the director of CNC Global, addressing how he fosters balance within the company and with his employees. From there, the article picks up about our Inner Fitness® tips for creating balance, so be sure to read right through the whole article… there are some good tips there to pick up.

Here is the full article, with the exception of the photograph…

A special information series
SMALL BUSINESS INNOVATION: BASICS (PART 14)

“WORK-LIFE BALANCE”
“Finding this ever-elusive equilibrium takes setting boundaries and having fun”

Ever go the gym with your boss, or kick back together at work over a beer or a glass of wine and some casual conversation?

At the Calgary office of CNC Global, the staff of 18 works and plays together regularly. Every now and then on a Wednesday at 4:30 p.m., for example, the staff convenes for what they call “Hump-Day Hops.” Dave Quinn, the company’s director for Southern Alberta, says his group will often just sit around and chat or sometimes have an informal roundtable discussion. He especially likes Thursdays at 3 p.m., when the staff takes turns providing sweet or savoury snacks for their weekly, half-hour gathering in the kitchen.

Mr. Quinn is very sensitive to his employees’ work-life balance and has fostered some very innovative practices at his CNC Global branch to allow for that. Sick days are a thing of the past. Instead, “care days” take their place. “We call them care days so that our employees can also look after a child or a parent and don’t have to take up vacation time to do that,” says Mr. Quinn.

Only two mornings a week, employees have to be at work at a set time for meetings. The rest of the week? They can arrive at 7 a.m. and leave by 4 p.m. or an-ive at 9 a.m. and leave by 6 p.m. “They realize and appreciate the value of having that flexibility,” Mr. Quinn says, adding that his personal philosophy is that we work to live, not live to work. “The things that are truly important in our lives happen after 5 p.m.”

The employees at CNC Global also have charity/volunteer days, team ski days, horseback riding days, and have even camped together. “We are trying to do a snowmobile outing in December,” says Mr. Quinn, who believes these activities are important in establishing connections between employees and positive memories around work. “That helps balance out the inevitable negatives that happen on day-to-day basis.”

Many people who run small offices are partly motivated to go out their own in order to create their own corporate culture and avoid the grind. But, with the added responsibilities and multiple roles they take — striking a work-life balance is easier conceived of than achieved.

On top of building in some fun and flexibility at work, it is also important to establish techniques to combat the sense of stress that can be created around deadlines and heavy workloads.

“We’re rushing from one event another...living in those anticipatory moments and not living in this moment very often,” says Carolyn Clarke, a Sunshine Coast-based counsellor and natural health consultant with Richard T. Clarke and Associates and the Inner Fitness program.

She says high achievers have done so at a cost, which is becoming fairly serious issue. “Our North American society has fixated on quantity versus quality.., measuring ourselves more by our money and status and less by our family life and sense of community.”

Mrs. Clarke looks at balance as a dynamic process, using the analogy of a tightrope walker, constantly shifting to find equilibrium. “Balance isn’t a destination. It’s active and ever-changing. It requires attention and input.”

That’s where certain practices come in to create a more well-rounded approach to work and life. “When people look after their own personal care (their physical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual well-being) they also stand a really good chance of boosting their sense of meaning in the world, having a good home life, and bringing that forward into their work realm,” says Mrs. Clarke.

She says there are seven keys to living in balance: Make your health number one and commit to practices that will carry you through stressful periods; set clear boundaries for work and life and stick to them; take downtime to rejuvenate; nurture your relationship with yourself and commit to your personal growth through hobbies, understanding your passions and creating growth opportunities; nurture your love relationship, which is the foundation for everything else, and maximize keeping it alive; keep family and friends high on your list of priorities; infuse your life with a spiritual practice such as meditation, prayer and relaxation rituals.

“We all yearn for something more than the daily grind,” concludes Mrs. Clarke, pointing out that being tuned-in to our inner selves and infusing peace, effective organization and a pleasant atmosphere into our work space can make a world of difference in truly achieving a work-life balance."

Well, there you have it! Thanks to the Globe and Mail for inviting me to be a part of their great series!

To invite your loved ones to be a part of our Inner Fitness(R) Work and Life Balance tips, send them to this link... www.a-balanced-life.com

Warmly, Carolyn
Inner Fitness(R) Programs
www.innerfitness.ca
Our guided meditation CDs are available online through CDBaby at http://cdbaby.com/cd/crclarke4

Our Return From Texas

Hello again!

Richard and I are just back from our great trip to Austin, Texas where we taught a "Balance For Wellbeing" seminar for the realtor and mortgage broker members of Core Training's Summit conference. All went very well and it was a treat to be with them again, a bi-annual event for us over the last two years now.

Thank you to the founders of Core for including us in their awesome program. Their money management emphasis are vital teachings that every person should have learn early in life in order to earn but especially save wisely, able to live prosperously within our means. Though in a very different business than the Core members, Richard and I always come away from these events feeling as though we learned valuable lessons to apply for our own lives, too.

What really inspires me at these events, though, is how motivated and optimistic each person is to grow their business, how they set achievable goals for each six month period of time... and have the drive to make these goals happen. Indeed, they are an inspiring bunch of business owners playing large in life and we admire them for it. Not only motivated, they're just a GREAT bunch of people, too. Our friendships are deepening and we appreciate that we're invited to contribute to their gaining more balance in their personal growth, their families, their relationships and in their self-care.

Happy that we took a few extra days to play after the completion of the conference, we rented a car and travelled around the countryside seeing small towns, massive ranches and enjoyed the warm sunshine and the gorgeous landscape. We were warmed by the Texan hospitality!

Without a doubt, we'd love to return to Texas... and if our lifestyle could manage it, we decided that the outskirts of Austin would be the perfect place to winter each year. Maybe that's a goal we'll work towards!

Anyways, I hope all is going well for you since we've been away and thanks for visiting again. I have lots to write about, so visit again soon.

Warmly, Carolyn
Inner Fitness(R) Programs
www.innerfitness.ca

Gratitude For Your Life Bounty

Welcome!

Yesterday was Canada's celebration of Thanksgiving Day, a day set aside to take stock of all that life offers to be grateful for.

We spent the day with several of our closest friends, sharing happy conversation, much laughter, incredibly tasty food and sunshine streaming through the house throughout our visit. I captured the day in photographs, as I so love to do wherever I go, and happily emailed them out to everyone today.

This is "the good stuff of life!"

When I placed my head down upon my pillow last night ready to sleep, I could feel the smile in my heart from the day of being together with those that I love. Our cat, Diva jumped up and curled up beside me, heightening my happy feelings even more.

I've been hyper aware lately, in the face of the serious news of our planet lately, how important it is to disengage from all that is negative and stressful and depleting of vital life energy... and instead focus on all that brings loving, caring, joyous, positivity into my life.

It becomes all too easy to get sucked into the worrisome fear factor of life and forget to see that which is good and uplifting. If you are a magnet to the television or listening to the radio news, I urge you to monitor the amount of exposure you give yourself to it. While television has some valuable programming, as you know most of the content serves as a downer instead.

Look around your immediate life circumstances and FIND those things that you feel incredibly good about.

What's working for you? Build on it!

What can you expand on? Create it!

You want a better life? Make it your life's purpose to focus on the good... the loving... the fun... the smiling... the friendship... the minute joys... and the mighty ones, too!

Life's great, depending on your perspective. And, if you don't like what you're seeing about life, "clean your glasses" for a new way of seeing. : ) Change your ways, make new rituals for goodness instead.

There really is so much bounty when we're willing to see it and open our lives to it.

Say a "thank you blessing or prayer" as you put your head on your pillow tonight and go to sleep with happiness in your heart. Sweet dreams, my friend.


Warmly, Carolyn
Inner Fitness(R) Programs
www.innerfitness.ca