Allison Maslan, author of Blast off!

Author and Coach Allison Maslan Helps You ‘Blast Off’ in 2010

by Lynn Serafinn, MAED, CPCC

Like this article? Share it with others

These days, the market is flooded with self-help books. Unfortunately, all too many of them leave me feeling dull and lifeless, and they don’t really “help” very much. Half of the books I come across hit you over the head with “power talk” that makes you feel guilty for not being rich or for getting the occasional cold (I won’t mention names, but I have indeed tossed more than one self-help book across the room because of this!). The other half usually drown you in lofty “woo woo” language that never quite gets down to practical action. Frustrating! For a new self-help book to stand out from the crowd and become keeper in my library, it would need to be friendly, engaging, fun AND practical. In other words, it would actually have to HELP me help myself. In her new book Blast Off! The Surefire Success Plan to Launch Your Dreams into Reality, author, coach and registered homeopath Allison Maslan, has achieved exactly that. Her book is a step-by-step programme to achieving some of the most challenging and important goals in life: career, relationship, health, fun/adventure, and of course financial security. In my own experience as a coach, I know that when people wish to make positive changes in their lives in any of these areas, they can frequently feel overwhelmed. I know that there are two keys to helping them get started: 1) make the challenge feel light and fun and 2) break the challenge into smaller, and not so daunting, chunks. Maslan uses both of these strategies in her book Blast Off! Her creative and colourful use of language (Daily Launch Tools, Weekly Flight Assessments, etc) and her easy break-downs of tasks and targets (Sun-up Scripts, Mini-Feats, etc) give Blast Off! a quality of lightness that helps readers believe they can and will achieve their goals and aspirations. But most importantly, Maslan keeps the reader focussed on the bigger picture: life purpose and the path of your whole life. Thus, unlike other books that might just focus on one aspect of life, like money, relationships or health, Blast Off! is a holistic handbook for creating the life you want to live. Written with a charm that immediately makes you feel at home, Allison avoids the downfalls of so many other self-help authors (no condescending “power talk”, no airy-fairy stuff). With Blast Off!, Allison Maslan has written an accessible, inviting and honest handbook, with a sweet, down-to-earth charm and practical action steps. The combination results in something that is both believable and useful. In other words, this is one self-help book that actually IS showing you how to help yourself. Blast Off!, along with the excellent organised companion Workbook, is kind of like having a life coach in a book. Certainly worth checking out to enhance your New Year’s resolutions in 2010.

Blast Off! The Surefire Success Plan to Launch Your Dreams into Reality by Allison Maslan is coming to Amazon on 19 January 2010. I have joined up with over 20 other mind-body-spirit professionals to help celebrate the release of this special book. Together, we are giving away an array of very special gifts to everyone who purchases the book during its launch. To find out how you can receive these gifts, go to http://www.myblastoff.com/booklaunch.

Like this article? Share it with others

VIDEO: The Known Universe by American Museum of Natural History

This is simply awesome. And I mean that in the literal sense. It fills me with complete awe and really puts existence in perspective. What an amazing Universe we live in! Felt it had to go on my site. I call this my “cosmic universe” after all! Hope you enjoy it.

Please let your comments below and share with others.

Apart from being the one day of the year where parents surrender all attempts to keep their children on a healthy diet, Halloween is also the day where we, both children and adults, get to dress up and make believe we are someone or something else for a day. What we choose could be our alter ego, our wildest fantasy or our scariest nightmare. I believe we can often learn a lot about ourselves by looking back at what we wanted to be on Halloween when we were children.

What do our Halloween costumes reveal?

I remember the very first Halloween outfit that I selected for myself when I was about 4 years old. My mother took me to the shop to look at costumes. She suggested a very pretty “Fairy Princess” costume, which was a long pastel pink and white dress with lace and ruffles, accessorised with a sparkly crown. While I liked the sparkly crown, the frilliness and the colour of the dress didn’t appeal to me. Instead, I opted for the “Gypsy Princess” costume. The colours were vivid—strips of emerald green, rich magenta, bright gold and deep purple fabric layered atop a flowing black taffeta skirt. The top was a white peasant blouse and instead of a crown, it had a brightly printed headscarf and big dangly “jewellery”. It was not at all “frilly”, and seemed exotic to me. I loved to dance and spin around and around in it, watching the skirt fly in billowy circles around me.

So, fifty years on, what can I understand about myself when I look back at this? I can see that even from a very early age I was showing my natural inclination towards the arty and bohemian side of life. And years later, I indeed would become a musician and a writer, with a tendency to move from place to place every few years (my father always called me a gypsy). While I do consider myself to be extremely feminine, I was never what you would call a “girlie girl”, and to this day I simply cannot wear pastels!

What were some of the Halloween (or other fancy dress) costumes you chose for yourself when you were a child? Don’t worry if they were scary ghosts or monsters. Maybe these characters were helping you express your natural sense of humour and fun, or maybe they were expressions of your inner courage in the face of fear. Maybe your costume expressed a hidden side of you that was not able to express itself any other way. Or maybe, your mom or dad picked out your costume for you and it didn’t express you at all! Even if that was the case, it can tell us a lot about the history of our self-expression.

What can our childhood make-believe tells us about ourselves?

Halloween is not the only time we make believe as children, of course. How many of us had favourite characters we pretended to be when we played either alone or with others? In my book The Garden of the Soul, I share one of my make-believe characters—a talking parrot named Polly who was the navigator of a space ship, taking human beings on journeys through the Milky Way. In other games, we would sometimes play “school” and I would be the teacher. Other times, we played “church” and I would be the priest. So what else can I learn about my natural personality from my childhood make-believe? Looking back, I can see that I was expressing my natural eccentricity (I was a parrot and not a human being!) and my love for exploration. I could see I was becoming the navigator—the one who would lead others to new things. I was revealing my inclination towards being an explorer, a traveller, a teacher and even a spiritual guide. There is so much we can learn about ourselves when we look back at how we played as children.

Take a moment to think back to your own childhood. What “make-believe” characters and personalities did you naturally step into? To what degree were they expressions of who you really were inside, or who you wished (or knew) you would become? What did these characters say about you at your core? What values or qualities did these characters reveal about you? Were you a super hero fighting for justice? A spy who loved risk and intrigue? A time traveller fascinated by the past or the future? A space traveller curious about what makes the Universe tick? A pirate seeking adventure or treasure? A mommy or daddy expressing family values and love?

The roles we play as adults

As children, making believe is an important tool to help us discover, explore and express who we are. But unfortunately, when many of us grow up, we continue to take on “costumes” and “masks” in our in our family, social group or work environment that, rather than express who we are, limit our authentic expression and natural personality. We take on “roles” where we “play” a certain part in our daily dramas. Examples of roles might be “the good girl”, “the wounded one”, “the sensible one” or “the peace maker”. And there are so many more besides these. Just like putting on a Halloween costume or making believe, when we step into these roles, we “become” them, and often find ourselves restricted and frustrated as a result. For instance, if you have taken on the role of the “peace maker” in your family or your workplace, you might find yourself without a voice, as you are continually trying to balance the imbalances of others around you. The irony is that you yourself might never feel peaceful, and your efforts might actually create more unrest and lack of connection in your environment. If you take on the role of “the wounded one”, you might find it difficult to become independent because you might come to believe that you need the continual support of other people or things in order to feel safe. The irony of course is that this neediness can in fact end up pushing away the very support you believe you need, only reinforcing your feelings of being “wounded”.

When we put on a Halloween costume or making believe, we know we are “playing”. But unfortunately, many of us are unaware of the roles we play as adults. We intuitively sense that something is not quite right but we cannot put our finger on it. Our roles can be difficult to recognise if we have been stuck in them since childhood and we don’t know any differently. One of the first things I help clients see when they come to me for coaching are these unconscious roles or scripts they might be playing our in their heads, that are making their lives unfulfilling in one way or another. Somewhat playfully, I call these roles and scripts “monsters”, and I teach clients how to recognise and shift the monsters both in one-to-one coaching and in my course “Making Friends with the Monsters Under Your Bed”. The good news is that over time, it is possible to become conscious of the unconscious roles we play; and as we bring them into our awareness, we can move away from feeling trapped by them, and towards being able to choose whether or not we wish to continue wearing these “costumes” if we feel they are not serving our greater good.

Taking off the masks

People sometimes ask what I mean by the term “personal transformation”. Basically it simply means bringing what was once in the darkness (unconscious and unaware) into the light (conscious and aware). When we bring our shadow into the light of awareness, we step into the person we really are, and cease playing roles that do not reflect the light of our inner Self.

While personal transformation is essential for our Self actualisation and ultimate happiness, it does come with a caveat. It is important to understand that if our role is something we tend to “default” to in our family, social or work situations, chances are many other members in that scenario are also playing their own roles, without awareness of the fact they are doing so. And if you suddenly become aware and step out of your “assigned” role, it can really rock the boat! Imagine that everyone in your life is on stage in a play. You have a part to play and you have played it for years. Then suddenly, you start reading the lines of the hero, when you are “supposed” to be playing the villain, or the servant or the milkman. Of course, the whole cast would become confused wondering who they are supposed to “play” now. All hell would break loose on stage!

When you decide to take off your mask in life, a similar scenario might take place if the people around you are not at a similar level of conscious evolution as you are. In other words, your shifting away from your previously unconscious, disempowering roles can frequently confuse and even anger your family, friends and work colleagues. With time, most will adjust, but occasionally people cannot or will not adjust to the new “you” (which is actually the “true you”) and you might actually “lose” people along the way, or at the very least be the recipient of their judgments and criticism. While this is a necessary risk we must take in the name of finding fulfilment, the thought of the ramifications of that risk can sometimes be really scary. For many of us, lack of awareness coupled by the fear of losing money, job, friends or family are the primary reasons why we stay stuck playing the roles we privately hate the most.

Transformation takes self-awareness, courage and self-honesty. But even more, it takes self-love and commitment to your own wellbeing. In order to step out of the costumes that do not reflect who you really are, you must be willing to remain steadfast in your commitment to your own happiness during the process of transition, even if it means risking a period of unsettledness in your relationships or lifestyle. This risk is essential before you can step into your true “costume”—where you are the hero of your own life.

Stepping into your superhero costume

Those of you who follow my work know that it is my firm belief that every human being is born the “hero” of his/her own life. And it is my belief that when you finally step into your Authentic Self, whatever that might be, you become a genuine superhero, and that this “costume” is the only one that is meant for you.

How do you know you have finally stepped into your superhero costume? It has nothing to do with saving the world or leaping over tall buildings. When you feel inwardly empowered, natural and free, you are the superhero. When you genuinely feel seen and heard, you are the superhero. When you feel connected to Self, other and the Universe, you are the superhero. When you are smiling and having FUN, you are the superhero.

In short, when you know you are being YOU, you are the superhero. And as you know, a real superhero is capable of great things.

Every day, I express my gratitude for being able to live a life that is in alignment with the person I know I was born to be. I have finally thrown away the countless costumes of the past that did not serve me, and I now wear one costume—the ME costume! And you know what? The “ME” costume still contains elements of that bold, colourful, dancing Gypsy Princess and the Polly the Space Navigator Parrot. In all I do, I express that same freedom and creativity that I knew was my Authentic Self when I was a child. But of course the “ME costume is so much greater than that. And make no mistake—your “YOU” costume is truly a coat of unlimited colours.

So this Halloween, as you don your holiday costume, or next week when you return to work, and step into your default role at your job, ask yourself how well these costumes express your innermost being. And if the answer is “Not very well”, perhaps it is time to explore a different fancy dress shop, and try on some new costumes for a change. But if the answer is “Yes, completely!” you just might be living the life of a superhero.

May you step into your YOU costume, and your every day be Halloween, filled with treats.

Lynn Serafinn
31 Oct 2009

P.S.: The title of this article is taken from one of my FAVOURITE songs by Ministry, which really reflects the whole idea of what we see/show of ourselves to others. Hear the track on my Blip.FM page at: http://blip.fm/~fo6cr Have fun!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lynn Serafinn, MAED, CPCC is a transformation coach, speaker, radio host and author of the bestselling book The Garden of the Soul: lessons from four flowers that unearth the Self.

Lynn coaches clients from all over the world via telephone. If you would like to discover and unleash your inner hero, call Lynn for a FR*EE  no obligation coaching consultation at 0845 880 28 25 during normal business hours, or fill in a consultation request form at http://www.create-a-life.co.uk/free_consultation_request.html

And many thanks to Urus Fret of Norway (a member of the Garden of the Soul social network) for sharing this wonderful video.

…a completely random blog post that has nothing whatsoever to do with work, business or anything serious…

Well, Mercury is back to his old tricks again.

Do any of you remember back in February when there were so many problems on the Internet? Those of you who are on Twitter might remember when it went crazy for a few days. Well, as it turns out, the planet Mercury was in retrograde back then (retrograde meaning the time when it appears to be moving backwards from our vantage point on Earth). It seems to be a widely accepted explanation that when things like this happen in cyberspace, poor Mercury frequently gets the blame, especially if it is retrograde. In fact, every time I hear someone going through some sort of communication breakdown, I also hear people asking, “Is Mercury in retrograde again?”

So is there anything to this Mercury stuff, or is it all a story we use to explain away our own frustrations with technology?

Well, this morning I woke up and my coaching website was completely GONE! No website, no email, nadda. I had arranged to have it transferred to a new host, but somehow it got pointed to the wrong nameserver. It took a few hours to sort that out, and when I did, my website was still not online. I couldn’t get through to customer support for the longest time. Then, when I finally did, my cordless phone started to beep and it went dead just as the tech support guy told me the very last thing I needed to know in order to get everything fixed. He told me that my current hosting package was not compatible with the format of my old site, so I ended up having to buy a whole new hosting plan. This meant I had to upload all my files to a new area, which took hours to do. The site was finally restored around 8pm. after about 10 hours of confusion.

In between trying to sort all that out, I was also trying to send out a newsletter via my autoresponder. But for some inexplicable reason, my email delivery programme wouldn’t save anything, and it kept wiping out my newsletter every time I tried to send it. This went on for hours. My newsletter eventually got sent out around 3pm, whereas it should have gone out at 9am.

Hmm… suspicious.

So after all that, I Googled “Mercury in Retrograde 2009” and sure enough, I found out that Mercury went back into retrograde YESTERDAY, and he won’t be turning back around until 29 September.

The coincidence felt pretty convincing, I have to say, but I was still curious to find out more. So I thought I’d have a look at my own astrological birth chart to find out more about the planet’s influence.

In astrology, Mercury is the “ruler” of communications. Hence, it is logical that Mercury is also the “ruler” of our interpersonal communication via the Internet. Mercury is also traditionally known as the “messenger” of the Greek gods, because he transits the most quickly of all the planets across the skies (being the closest to the Sun). He is believed to race through the ether literally at the speed of thought, and thus is able to carry celestial and cerebral messages without the limitations of time and space. This is why, in addition to verbal communication, Mercury is also the ruler of mental swiftness, intellectual abilities and intuition.

In my chart, Mercury is in my 7^th House, which, according to my horoscope programme, means that my chief asset is my “ability to establish contact with other people and communicate with them.” It also says that I am “simply curious about the minds of other people and interested in their thoughts and how they function.” Well, heck, that is absolutely true. My teaching, my coaching, my workshops, my writing (hmm… my Twittering and blogging…) all of these things express my ability to contact and communicate. I think that is why I can have so much fun online, whereas a lot of other professionals I know find it draining.

I kept reading my chart to find out more about Mercury’s influence in my life.

My Mercury is in the same sign as my Sun (Aquarius), which means that I am “a clear thinking person, very open to new and exciting ideas” and that I am possibly “connected with awareness and consciousness” in my professional life.

Wow! That is completely true. I always looking for new and exciting ideas, and everything I do has to do with awareness and consciousness. In fact, the workshop series I am delivering over the coming year (more about these another day) are all aimed at cultivating awareness and consciousness of both Self and environment.

Lastly, I thought I’d look up one more aspect, and found that Mercury had a very strong “trine” (90 degree angle) with Neptune. My programme said that this means:

“You have a very refined mental sensitivity which may be expressed through some form of imaginative and creative work. You possess a wonderful intuition, but formal learning and dry facts do not interest you. You can be quite a perfectionist and are very good at spotting mistakes and errors. You have a talent for creative communication – as a writer, in advertising or the media, or as a general part of your work.” (World of Wisdom, version WOWUSSP2000).

Again… wow indeed! I am a writer, I am in the media (I’m on the radio THREE times tomorrow, in fact), and I actually spend about half my life doing online promotion. Even when I was a musician, I was always the one in charge of communications and promotion. It comes naturally to me. And “dry facts”… puh-leez! I used to rebel in school when the teachers taught by rote. I cannot stand “memorising” things, and “facts” simply go out of my brain (I do still, however, remember birthdays and phone numbers from when I was a kid… go figure).

About the intuition thing, well that is something I have been cultivating more and more over the past few years. I continually reflect back and see how many times in life I underestimated my own intuition and more “mercurial” powers. I think Mercury has become an increasingly powerful paradigm in my life.

Reading all this led me to reflect upon my recent experiences at the One World Festival in Bath last month. When I wasn’t teaching a workshop myself, I was a participant in several interesting workshops. The two most mind-opening (and mind-blowing) were some “Rebirthing” sessions I did, and a short course in palmistry. The Rebirthing course is a whole other story,  so I’ll leave for another day, but the palmistry course was a real eye-opener about the way the body mirrors the inner Self. Little did I know before I took the course that traditional palmistry is based upon the planets and their influences upon us.

AND… you guessed it… Mercury appears again in palmistry. The “pinkie” finger is traditionally called the “Mercury finger” (palmist Johnny Fencham calls it the “Antenna Digit” as it is all about picking up signals from the cosmos). The length of your Mercury finger reflects your intellectual and communication skills, and a collection of vertical lines running upwards beneath it can indicate tendency towards a “healing” profession. While this is a gross over-simplification of the many subtle aspects of this very intricate art, the point is that my own “Mercury Finger” is quite long, and has these “healing lines” beneath it. Again, another Mercury link.

So what is the answer? Is there really a link between my technological toys going crazy today, and Mercury changing its direction just a few hours earlier?

Well, at a completely intuitive level, I’m inclined to say yes.

But then again, being the “open minded” Aquarian that I am, I am ok with not needing a “logical” explanation, and I am fine with all of this not having to make any sense whatsoever. I find there is a beauty to seeing it all as some sort of delightfully random cosmic dance.

Of course, I am quite sure that this perspective might be very irritating to some of my more rational readers in cyberspace. And if that is the case, I think I’ll just blame it on Mercury for now.

…And if tomorrow I end up sending you a blog post that was really meant to go out last week, at least you’ll know why.

nnifareS nnyL–

P.S.:
Please be sure you catch my show “Lynn Serafinn’s Garden of the Soul” tomorrow night at 6pm UK/1pm Eastern. My guest is the fabulous Jennifer Louden of Oprah fame. She’s going to tell us all how we can “Have a Blast While Changing the World”. If you miss the show, you can always download the podcast on demand at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Lynn-Serafinn

Continuity is a sense of begininglessness and endlessness that comes from feeling connected to Existence itself. In the Divine sense, Continuity does not refer to the act of “sticking with things” for a long period of time. In fact, Continuity has nothing at all to do with “doing”; it is an attribute of Being. Nor does Continuity refer to a need for things to be changeless. Quite the opposite, Continuity is that state we reach where we are able to witness all of Creation as a great system of continual flow and change without beginning or end. Existence is both always the same, and always changing, simultaneously. When we witness this, and feel this at our core, we come to realise that Reality is comprised of a single experience of Divine Continuity, which has infinite possibilities of expression. These possibilities flow like the colours of a kaleidoscope as we turn the wheel around and around. As these patterns are ever-changing, we cannot say there is ever truly a specific pattern, as there is no way to “freeze” them in time. When we release the need to hold on to a particular pattern, we begin to step into the awestruck feeling of Divine Continuity, and come to enjoy every moment as it unfolds before us.

It is often said that unhappiness comes in life when we form attachments to these patterns. We see a flash of a particular pattern in life, and we want to hold onto it. We might be very fond of a person, place, activity, thing or idea. Or, we might equally dislike one of these things. Each of these things is a but a momentary flash in the unlimited possibilities within the Divine Continuity, but in our minds we form a “pattern” of what it is, that actually tries to limit it and resist its natural evolution. When someone ages, becomes ill or dies, we think they have changed. But in reality, their pattern was always in a state of change, and it was only our attachment to it that created the illusion that the pattern was permanent. In Sanskrit, this illusion is called maya, which means “to measure”. When we measure things, we limit them, and we view them as separate from both ourselves and from Divine Continuity. So, while our sorrow and feelings of loss can be said to be caused by our attachment to the pattern, the key affliction is that we have a sense of disconnection from the Divine. When that connection is re-established, unhappiness is not possible, as we are able to relish the continual dance of Divine Change within the Changeless, and take delight in all things that come our way—even the seemingly painful.

In The Garden of the Soul the Lily is the embodiment and the mentor of the attribute of Continuity. She shines like the point of a diamond in the centre of the Garden, radiating and reflecting a kaleidoscope of continual change that contains all possibilities. Continuity is the ultimate attribute of Divine Source, as it is that from which Creation, Sustenance and Evolution all occur simultaneously and eternally. Beginnings and endings are both nowhere and everywhere. When we release the need to hold on to anything, and begin to delight in all there is and whatever comes to us, we have stepped into our own Divine Continuity.

Enquiries to cultivate this attribute
1. What to I hold on to that causes me pain?
2. What do I see when I simply allow the kaleidoscope of change to happen?
3. Who am I when I feel fully connected to Divine Continuity?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hope you liked this week’s Garden of the Soul Weekly Meditation. Read below to find you how you can help me write my next book, have your name mentioned on the radio, and have a chance to be mentioned in the book, under my acknowledgements.

ABOUT THIS COLLABORATIVE BOOK PROJECT
I am writing a “Companion Guide to the Garden of the Soul: 80 Daily/Weekly Practices to Allow Your Spirit to Blossom”. The book has 80 Daily (or Weekly) meditations to help to cultivate the spiritual attributes of the four flowers in the book. All 80 attributes are already “assigned” a number, but the entries for them have not necessarily been written yet.

YOU CAN HELP ME WRITE MY BOOK!
1. Every Wednesday through Sunday, just send me a number from 1 – 80 that you pick intuitively.
2. I will put all the numbers into a “hat” and chose one at random.
3. I will publish the correlating “meditation” for that number on the following Friday.
4. AND… if you number is selected, I will also read your name and your intuitively chosen meditation ON THE AIR on my weekly broadcast of “Lynn Serafinn’s Garden of the Soul” at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Lynn-Serafinn. Now that our show is 1 hour long, I have plenty of time for this. It’s just so much fun.
5. AND…I will also mention every person whose number was selected in the “acknowledgements” section of my book when it is published!

HOW DO YOU SEND ME YOUR NUMBER?
You can SEND me your number by:
• Sending me a message on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/LynnSerafinn OR
• Posting it on the wall of my Fan Page at http://tinyurl.com/gots-fan OR
• Via Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/LynnSerafinn OR
• Through my Ning group at http://gardenofthesoul.ning.com OR
• A comment on my blog at http://lynnserafinn.com OR

HOW DO YOU RECEIVE YOUR WEEKLY MEDITATION?
You can RECEIVE your weekly mediation by:
• Subscribing to my blog at http://www.lynnserafinn.com OR
• Joining my Facebook group at http://tinyurl.com/fb-gots OR
• Joining my Facebook FAN page at: http://tinyurl.com/gots-fan OR
• Joining my Ning group at http://gardenofthesoul.ning.com OR
• Tuning in/downloading my weekly show at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Lynn-Serafinn

SO FAR THE WEEKLY MEDITATIONS HAVE BEEN:
1. Day 75: Self-Awareness, selected by Kristina Berglund
2. Day 11: Boldness, selected by Kate Parker
3. Day 13: Vitality, selected by Callie Carling
4. Day 48: Discovery, selected by Geoff Laughton
5. Day 54: Rebirth, selected by Cindy Papale
6. Day 45: Growth, selected by Jude Jennison
7. Day 23: Elegance, selected by Callie Carling, Cindy Papale and Lynn Jaussi Rush
8. Day 77: Continuity, selected by Shannon Jackson and Callie Carling
9. Day ???: Coming next week! What does YOUR intuition tell you?

I look forward to receiving your intuitive number this week.

See you in the Garden!

Warm wishes,
Lynn Serafinn
Author of Amazon bestseller, The Garden of the Soul: lessons from four flowers that unearth the Self
Main site: http://www.lynnserafinn.com