Jean Widner: How Technology Can Improve Your Meditation

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by Jennifer McCartney

What if you could take your meditation to the next level by incorporating technology into your daily routine?

Jean Widner, co-owner and national sales manager of Wild Divine Inc., shared with listeners of the “Living an Elevated Existence Mind, Body & Soul Summit Season 2,” how we can tune into our bodies natural rhythms — like breathing and heart rate — and improve our heart’s coherence cycle to meditate easily or deepen our existing practice. She explained how combining the ancient wisdom of meditation with Wild Divine’s modern technology can help train our mind, body and spirit to self-regulate; tap into our own personal power; improve our mental focus, creative thinking and intuition; and more.

Wild Divine Inc. specializes in designing and developing unique, whole-body relaxation training programs that help people reduce stress and live happier, more well-balanced lives—and is a leader in the emerging lifestyle technology market.

“What we have is a very simple sensor,” Widner explained about the hardware involved. This sensor, called an IomPE, works with a standard Mac or PC. “It’s just a simple little gadget about three inches by one inch. You basically just plug that into a USB port, and the other end of it has an ear clip, which you put on your earlobe.”

It’s hands free—allowing users to sit and meditate, while the software tapes the heartrate signal and inputs the data into the program allowing users to monitor not only their heart rate, but also their breath cycle. There are also a number of exercises, some spiritual and tapping into emotion, and others focused on breathing techniques, and the program provides feedback on a person’s meditation.

“You can see it live on screen,” she said. “When you’re graphing yourself, you can see your resting heart rate, along with two different visuals—a numerical representation of your coherence score, your heart rate, and your color spectrum. At the beginning it will be yellow. Then when you move into the heart breath it moves to green, then to deep blue.”

The breath is even represented by a butterfly icon in one program that opens and closes with each inhale and exhale. This ability to see concrete results means even on a mediation day that feels unproductive, or you realize through the meditation that you’re distracted, the program offers concrete evidence that the meditation has had a physical effect on the body. And it isn’t just about relaxing! There are also exercises for stimulating breath to gain rejuvenation and energy, Widner shared with the audience.

To listen to Jean’s interview, along with 26 other top experts in mind, body & spirit topics, sign up for the FREE summit now!

Using the Software
The Wild Divine program offered to listeners of the Elevated Existence Summit uses 15 steps, which includes 30 guided meditations, and 13 inspirations around all different topics, and led by a variety of practitioners such as Zen master Nasim Aman, Dr. Dean Ornisch, Dr. Andrew Wild, Joan Borysenko, and Sharon Salzberg.

Widner broke down each of the 15 steps for listeners and explained each step was designed to work on a different area.

Step 1: Quieting the mind

Step 2: Observing your thoughts

Step 2: Working on inner balance

Step 4: Releasing physical tension

Step 5: Cultivating positive emotions.

Step 6: Revealing your inner wisdom

Step 7: Subduing your inner critic

Step 8: Opening yourself to others

Step 9: Practicing compassion for others and yourself

Step 10: Discovering gratitude

Step 11: Opening up to connect outside yourself (the collective consciousness)

Step 12: Setting your intentions

Step 13: “Taking your daily supplement”

Step 14: Learning to commit to a personal practice

Step 15: Finding a rhythm that works for you

The program can work for both beginners and seasoned meditators, along with everyone in between, and Widner offered a potential meditation schedule of about 10-15 minutes a day, 3-4 times a week.

“I don’t believe that we need to meditate for hours to get benefits,” she told listeners, recounting the story of a man with prostate cancer who had no background in meditation—but who found the tool “invaluable.” The program can also help if you’ve “meditated for years and you’ve never been able to find a practice that you could make stick,” Widner said.

“The great thing about meditation is that when you first start to carve out 10 or 15 minutes of your time in the morning, at first that feels like this sacrifice, that you’re greedy to have this time back laying under the covers trying to squeeze out a few more minutes of sleep,” Widner noted. “But once you really understand meditation and you start to gently embrace it and fit it into your daily routine, you find the reverse is true. You’re greedy for those 10 or 15 minutes of mediation time if you don’t get them in the morning. You find yourself out of sorts in the middle of the day.”

She likened the benefits of meditation to athletes who practice constantly to improve their performance. “You’re training yourself into a muscle memory reaction so that then you have more control,” she said. “If you’ve had a really busy and stressful day but you need to go to sleep, you can train muscle memory so that you can put yourself in a relaxed state. Just by knowing how to breathe.”

Widner also shared how the company will be launching, Wild Divine Online, a virtual world with group or individual meditation activities—and once a person has the hardware, they can sample other Wild Divine products.

“It’s a portal to a mindful world,” she told listeners. “People are demanding technology at their fingertips that will help them stay on track with their healthy habits. This is just the beginning.”

For more from Widner and the other 25 experts in mind, body and spirit topics, sign up FREE to Season 2 of the Living an Elevated Existence Summit.

Danielle MacKinnon: Revealing (and Releasing!) Soul Contracts

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By Jennifer McCartney

How many times have you wondered why, no matter how hard you try, you can’t keep a relationship? Or stay healthy, or make enough money? Or that you just can’t seem to find happiness?

Danielle MacKinnon, author of “Soul Contracts: Find Harmony and Unlock Your Brilliance,” intuitive, coach and animal communicator (who was named one of the country’s top 100 Astrologers and Psychics of 2014) shared with listeners of the “Living an Elevated Existence Mind, Body & Soul Summit Season 2,” how we can learn to recognize and release these hidden energetic barriers, or soul contracts, which block the way to true happiness and success.

“We form these [soul contracts] really young when we start believing negative things about ourselves,” MacKinnon explained to listeners. This complicated belief system still operates in us adults, and often leads to a lot of our problems, she says. As a coping mechanism, we create methods to “fix” the negative things we believe about ourselves, and begin to act certain ways in order to feel better about ourselves. These soul contracts will continue to negatively impact our lives until we discover them and release them.

Most people have no idea they’re being guided by these contracts but they are usually aware that they are stuck in some way. MacKinnon shared the example of a 45-year old woman being guided by her soul system, which consists of all these contracts we have made in the past.

“She needed to sacrifice for others to prove that she was worthy,” she said, explaining this was one of her soul contracts. “It had never occurred to her that sacrificing for love wasn’t the way to receive love.”

However, the things we do in order to alleviate the “blockages” caused by soul contracts are just a band-aid solution. A person who feels unworthy in life may constantly feel the need to prove their worth. But if someone feels they have to prove their worth in order to receive, “that giving is not coming from a place of ‘I have so much overflowing love,’” said MacKinnon. It’s coming from a place of ‘I need to prove something.’”

To listen to Danielle’s interview, along with 26 other top experts in mind, body & spirit topics, sign up for the FREE summit now!

Identify & Release
So how can we begin uncovering and releasing our own soul contracts? “It’s not complicated work…but people need to know the steps,” said MacKinnon.

First, we need to identify where exactly we are stuck. What are the soul contracts that are holding you back? “A soul contract will show up as a block. Why do I work overtime and not get paid? Why do my relationships end in disaster? Why don’t a feel happy? It’s often not just in one area,” she said, explaining a soul contract can affect all areas of our lives, from health and relationships to money and career.

For example, if you don’t feel safe in the world, your may have a soul contract that prevents you from speaking up so that you can protect yourself. This can affect you at work and in relationships. You may have the awareness that this is an issue, but simply trying to change a behavior once we are aware doesn’t work in the long term.

“Instead of a behavior change, we work on a belief change,” she noted. “It’s about clearing the negative energy. Clear and release these contracts. Once you feel safe in the world, speaking up isn’t an issue.”

She advised working on awareness first because by simply becoming aware of our contracts, we can begin to shake up our energy — often enacting smaller changes before the final clearing. Some people may come to realize they have a large number of soul contracts, but having a lot of them isn’t a bad thing.

“When you identify one, you now know that it’s operating in many areas of your life—your health, your wealth, relationships,” she noted, explaining once you clear it all these areas will improve.

After identifying the contracts, it’s about releasing yourself from them, ad MacKinnon provided listeners with a way to do this at home, walking them through it on the call. Speaking in a powerful voice, after calling in our guides, angels and helpers on the other side, we can say the following:

“I now consciously release all energies that are no longer serving me as a result of my ‘aha’ moments today. This includes all that my soul knows I’m ready to let go of as well as [here you can talk to your guides about what’s on your mind]. Please release all resulting physical, emotional, mental and spiritual attachments, and call my akashic records, consciousness and unconsciousness, and assist me in aligning with my greatest and highest potential. As these energies release please gracefully open my crown chakra and infuse me with the energy of unconditional love. [Take a moment and feel the love]. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

The block then feels less after a successful release, explained MacKinnon. “The success comes in increments—each small shift results in a new experience. The belief is shifted a little bit each time,” she noted.

Here are some tips to keep in mind as you work on releasing your soul contracts:

Be sure to set your foundations before getting started—remain grounded and organized and don’t just dive in and try and do everything.

Avoid trying to unblock too many contracts at once. You want things to shift in increments, otherwise it’s not sustainable. Shifting in bits is more natural.

“The proof really has to be in the pudding,” says MacKinnon. If you feel contentment and excitement you’re doing something right.

For more from MacKinnon and the other 25 experts in mind, body and spirit topics, sign up FREE to Season 2 of the Living an Elevated Existence Summit.

Choosing the Right Water

Posted on by Tammy

With the flood of filters and bottled water on the market today, understanding the options is the key to making the best choice

By Cathi Stack, ND

The options for water are endless – from tap and bottled to at-home filters and ionizers, but which options are the best when it comes to our health?

Having been inundated with many questions about which water to choose, I know it can be confusing. Most people agree tap water is not the best choice, but may not understand why. Typically there are two sources of tap water — ground water and surface water.

Ground water is usually pumped from wells and has been naturally filtered as it travels through the ground. The quality will vary based on where you live. Surface water is replenished by lakes, rivers and reservoirs, and while the quality of surface water varies from region to region, it is typically treated by filtration, flocculation (binding of harmful particles so they settle out) and disinfection (usually done with chlorine).

Other alternatives when it comes to water treatment are ozonation and ultraviolet radiation. Ozonation does not change the mineral content of water, but fear of contamination from chemical exposure is the issue. Also, this does not include the risk of contamination from old pipes.

For these reasons, tap water is not the best choice when it comes to drinking water. Below are the various alternative options available, and the pros and cons of each, so one can make the best choice for his or her individual situation.

Bottled Water
Touted to be the best, the jury is still out when it comes to the health benefits of bottled water. There is more variety to bottled water than you may think, including spring, mineral, well, artesian, sparkling and purified, and more information can be found at the International Bottled Water Association website at www.bottledwater.org.

The quality of the actual water is not usually the issue. The risk comes in the packaging. Soft and flimsy plastic bottles are very low in quality when it comes to your health because the plastic leaches into the water, causing increased risk for certain cancers. Freezing and thawing the bottles makes the problem even worse. One way to avoid this is to buy your water in glass bottles, but if you are purchasing bottled water in plastic, make sure to use sturdy plastic that does not squeeze easily under your grip. If it’s BPA-free, it’s even better.

For those interested in the best choices when it comes to healthier bottled water, the winners in my opinion are: pH Miracle Water, Eternal, Voss, Trinity, Essentia and Evamore. These superior choices are cleaner plastics or preferably glass. Also, drinking alkalized water is the best when it comes to your health. Look for a pH of about 9. Illness, degenerative disease, inflammation and even cancer do not like an alkaline environment.

Filters
Pitcher filters, while inexpensive, have only been proven to be slightly better than tap water. The better options are countertop and under the sink systems, which typically use carbon block or granular filtering methods. Dual Stage filters are a great choice as they remove harmful chemicals, as well as parasites, and the preservation of mineral content is typically maintained.

pH Drops
This will potentiate the health benefits of your water by altering the pH to about 9 or 10. The benefits of drinking alkalized water are no secret.

Ionization
These machines reverse the charge of water from positive to negative, which is more alkaline. Most appliances allow you to adjust the pH of the water, and I believe this would be the best choice for the health conscious consumer. Some of the more reputable brands include Young pHorever and Jupiter Orion. These units typically run from $800-$1,500, and are usually countertop models, but they can be mounted under the sink.

OTHERS TO AVOID
Distilled water is not recommended as it is void of any minerals. Reverse osmosis tends to be very acidic rather than alkaline, which is what we want. Also, deionized water does not remove bacteria.

These are the basics, but I encourage everyone to do their own research and make the best choice for their individual lifestyle.

Catherine (Cathi) Stack is owner, facilitator and Doctor of Naturopathy at Journey II Health LLC, established in 2007 in Niagara Falls, N.Y. Along with her naturopathic practice at Journey II Health, Stack continues to work at Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital as a Certified Nurse Midwife. She loves sharing her knowledge with her patients, co-workers, friends and readers. She currently writes for a variety of publications, which include her Sunday column in the Niagara Gazette. She can be reached via her Web site, www.journeyiihealth.com.

Emerging Women Live Part 4: Danielle LaPorte – You Are Worthy of Your Desires

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At the 2nd annual Emerging Women Live conference “Changing the World Through Feminine Leadership and Entrepreneurship,” in New York City, author of “The Fire Starter Sessions,” and “The Desire Map,” Danielle LaPorte took the stage on last day of the summit and offered laughter, advice and inspiration to the audience.

“Everything in your life had led you to right now,” she started off her talk saying to the audience, explaining the importance of self-love. “When you really practice self love, and really protect yourself, honor yourself and protect your ideals, and when you make your desires your prayers, you will not necessarily be very popular. Loving yourself does not guarantee that you will get loved. But I can guarantee that loving yourself that way you will be misunderstood. You will look to some, unloving. You will look like a crazy lady.”

When we begin to wake up to what we want, and what we deserve, there are things that become unacceptable to us, and we can begin to make more conscious choices in our life, she said.

“The short hand for self-love is this — you have a choice,” said LaPorte. “Joy is a choice, and there is so much to be grateful for in life. We learn through contrast and fear, and for self-love, all you need to say to yourself in every moment is ‘ I have a choice. I have a choice.’ Sometimes you will choose to do things that are uncomfortable, but you can make those choices consciously.”

She then asked the audience to throw out words and improv speak based on the words. Here is what she said:

Grief — It catches you off guard and can be an uncontrollable feminine, said LaPorte. “She comes in waves when you least expect it, and she demands your full presence,” she said, explaining sometimes we have responsibilities to handle and have to hit the pause button and compartmentalize, but make sure we feel the grief within the first 24 hours. “You have to make a date for the tears.”

Grace — “Grace is the cousin of synchronicity,” said LaPorte. “Every single thing is the universe communicating with you.”

Obligation — This goes back to self-love and choice. We believe we are obligated to pay our mortgage, take care of ailing parents, feed our children, but these are really choices. “Reframe obligation into choice, and the stress of the situation will heal itself,” LaPorte shared.

Ambition, Money and Power — These are all from the second chakra, and we should never apologize for our ambition, she told the audience. “Be fierce, but flexible,” she said, recalling a conversation she had with a Lama, where she explained she found it ironic we all pursue enlightenment with a certain intensity, but Buddhism teaches about detachment, and it always puzzled her.

“He explained there will always be desire,” said LaPorte. “You will always be attached. The question is are you being pushy about it. I’m a pushy bitch, and she usually shows up at 11:30 at night, where I will just check five more emails. She loves to look at her dayplanner and make sure everything is in order, and make sure everyone is doing what they are suppose to be doing.”

She learned to stop pushing, and at first felt naked because who would she be if she was not pushing, but realized “you will hire good people, meditate, take your supplements, be in the intelligent hear and will allow.”

Regret — For most people regret is for the things they did not do. For La Porte, it is the times she didn’t say ‘I love you,’ and she does that now and it makes a big difference in her life. “Always choose your friends over the deadline,” she shared. “Choose your friends over your credit card. Put the airplane ticket on your credit card and make the flight. Go to the wedding. Go to the baptism. surprise them. You don’t need to re-carpet your house, you need to take a vacation with your friends.”

Read Part 1 with Kris Carr on Resilience

Read Part 2 with Sera Beak on Unleashing Your Soul’s Voice

Read Part 3: Gabrielle Bernstein – Miracles Now

Congressman Tim Ryan Talks Mindfulness & The Real Food Revolution

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Last year, Congressman Tim Ryan published his book “The Mindful Nation: How a Simple Practice Can Help Us Reduce Stress, Improve Performance Recapture the American Spirit,” and shared how mindfulness and meditation can transform one’s life. Now he is releasing a new book called “The Real Food Revolution: Healthy Eating, Green Groceries and the Return of the American Family Farm,” encouraging the public to take control of their own health starting in their own kitchen.

Last Thursday, gathered at Deepak Homebase in ABC Carpet & Home in New York, he spoke about his passion on the topic, and was joined by New York Times bestselling author Dr. Mark Hyman and producer of the films “An Inconvenient Truth” and “Fed Up,” Laurie David. “Fed Up,” is a documentary featuring Katie Curic, President Bill Cliton and others, exposing the food industry and sugar.

“I was inspired by the film ‘Fed Up,’” said Congressman Tim Ryan. “Stress effects our health, but it’s also our food. Through a mindfulness practice you start to see how things are interconnected, and it kept coming back to food for me.”

He explained how his wife realized she had a gluten allergy, and they went to see Dr. Mark Hyman to get help. He emphasized diet and how if she shifted it, she could heal herself. Hyman asked her what type of food she ate as a child, and how many antibiotics she took. After a few months of dietary changes, she began to feel better and is now healthier then she ever was before, said Ryan.

‘In Washington we put things in silos, like food, education, healthcare, and we need to start seeing how all of them are interconnected,” he said. “This may be the first generation that may not live as long as their parents.”

His new book is about how Americans can begin to build out a new food system and instead of subsidizing companies who make processed food to make it more affordable, we should be subsidizing the agriculture and farmers so they can move to a new type of farming that is healthier for Americans.

Ryan also suggested starting with major universities, such as Ohio where he is from. Ohio University has 60,000 students and if they agreed to take 2 percent of the food budget and spend it on locally sourced vegetables and fruits, and then increased it to 4 percent and then 6 percent, that is how we can create a market for the farmers.

“What about public schools and prisons, which are now relying on highly processed foods,” he said, explaining we need to start educating every child in America how to eat properly.

“We need a garden in every school yard and a kitchen in every singles school, and a salad bar in every cafeteria,” Ryan said. “We need Homec 2.0. If we are going to be a competitive country, you have to be a healthy one.”

Dr. Mark Hyman also spoke, explaining his approach is to treat the person as a whole, and to treat the cause not just the symptom, which is a paradigm shift for many doctors today. And much of the disease we deal with today begins with the flora balance in out gut. Our gut health is connected to our immune system, brain function, metabolism, and many issues faced today, from autism, depression, auto immune disease, eczema, asthma and migraines can go back to the flora in the gut, Hyman noted.

Additionally, Laurie David spoke and said the film “Fed Up” opened the eyes of many people to how much sugar is hidden in our foods, and how giving up processed foods and beginning to cook again is an important step in the Real Food Revolution.

“We have been told it takes too long and is too hard to cook, but these are marketing myths the food industry convinces us with,” she noted. “Our children are not being given a chance at a healthy future.”

She pointed out a deal Girl Scouts of America has with Nesquik to create a Thin Mint Chocolate Milk, but this chocolate milk has 12 teaspoons of sugar per serving, she explained.

“That is more than a kid should have in four days,” David said. “One mom who is a Girl Scout troop leader was outraged and started a petition on Change.org that people can sign now.”

SIGN THE PETITION HERE

She shared that 4 grams of sugar on a label is equal to 1 tsp of sugar, and one of the easiest ways to begin to eliminate processed ingredients and sugar is to make our own salad dressing. Sugar is the single biggest toxin we face, Hyman added, explaining its poisoning America more than any other toxin.

“We’ve outsourced our kitchens to corporations,” said Hyman. “We do have to cook ourselves out of this mess, and we do have to do it one kitchen at a time.”

For more information on Tim Ryan’s new book click here: “The Real Food Revolution: Healthy Eating, Green Groceries, and the Return of the American Family Farm”.

For more information on Mark Hyman click here.

For more information on the film Fed Up click here.

Emerging Women Live Coverage Part 3: Gabrielle Bernstein – Miracles Now

Posted on by Tammy

On Sunday of the 2nd annual Emerging Women Live conference “Changing the World Through Feminine Leadership and Entrepreneurship,” in New York City, Gabrielle Bernstein, New York Times bestselling author of “May Cause Miracles” and “Miracles Now,” took the stage to discuss the power of our presence.

Bernstein shared how she was once running a PR company and on the outside it looked like she had all she desired to be successful and happy — but on the inside her world was falling apart. She was addicted to drugs and alcohol, and when she woke up at 25 years old in a stranger’s apartment not knowing where she was or how she got there, she realized she needed to change.

She went home, opened her journal and wrote — “there has to be a better way.” She then heard the voice of her intuition for the first time — an inner voice — tell her to “get clean and you will live a life beyond your wildest dreams.” She realized she needed to stop looking outside herself for what she already had within her.

“I got clean. I found a recovery group, and immediately spun back into this childlike faith I had forgotten,” she shared with the audience. “Within a month I was guided to a beautiful mentor in my recovery group who said, ‘I have a book for you.’ She handed me Marianne Williamson’s ‘A Return to Love,’ which is basically the cliff notes for a metaphysical book ‘A Course in Miracles.’ I read the entire book in one night.”

Bernstein decided to become a student of “A Course in Miracles” and began doing the workbook. The Course teaches that “through the experience of forgiveness we reorganize our beliefs systems and shift to love…the moment we choose again, to forgive, to see as situation with a loving lens instead of a fearful lens,” is when miracles occur, she said.

She shared five principles with the audience that she has been using to change her perceptions and shift from fear to love for the past nine years. These include:

1. Become the Non-Judgmental Witness of Your Fear — She asked the audience to be willing to take a fearless inventory of what is going on in their lives and take full ownership of what it means to be in negativity and fear. “Yes I am an addict I’m not stepping into my power. I’m talking a lot of shit about people. I am stuck in fear. I am stuck in a bad relationship,” she said. “But in a non judgmental way so you don’t get stuck in fear. Get brutally honest with yourself and your notebook. What is it that you want to transform?” It’s about owning if you are not showing up for your husband, business, etc. and accepting where you are first.

2. Invite In a Higher Power — She shared a line from the Course that says: The presence of fear is a sure sign that you are relying on your own strength. “How are you blocking and controlling the natural flow of your life by relying on your own strength, and how do you get to a place where you can start to redirect?” she asked, explaining we can all tap into a higher presence, whether we call it God, inspiration, energy or the Universe. She shared a daily prayer she uses every morning directly from the Course: “Where would you have me go, what would you have me do, what would you have me say and to whom?”

She also urged the audience to take up a meditation practice, as she has found it to be the most important tool she has in her life. “What I find to be most important to me in my life, more than husband, work, family and friends, is the time I spend on my meditation pillow,” she said. “My meditation has offered me everything. Why I’m standing here today, why I’m a New York Times bestselling author, why I have a healthy relationship, why I have a healthy body, and why I can live in this city [New York]. Do you want to go big in your life? My answer is meditate.”

3. Measure Your Success By How Much Fun You Are Having — “Joy is your responsibility,” she said. “We need to elevate joy in our own lives. If you are feeling powerless, lean toward joy . . . release the littleness, the story of ‘I’m not where I want to be yet,’ or ‘my guy sucks’ and say I’m going to show up.’”

4. Our presence is Our Power — It’s not how well we are dressed or what it says on our business card or even what we say or do for a living — our power is how we be, said Bernstein. “Have you even been in the presence of someone who is really embodying who they are? You feel good. Because you can recognize yourself,” she said. “ In every given situation, if you are leaning toward joy, you will be guided to show up, and you will be guided to your power and to be.”

5. Be the Light — “In any given moment we have the capacity to show up with our darkness or we can be the light,” she explained. “Any given moment offers the opportunity to show back up, to choose again. You can smother the darkness and dissolve all boundaries with love. Take ownership and bring the light.”

As a result of practicing these principles, Bernstein said she truly has created a life far beyond her wildest dreams and just celebrated nine years of recovery and one year of marriage. She also shared a mantra mediation for people to use to bring them out of negativity. It is “Ek Ong Kar Sat Gur Prasad,” and the music she played was from “Meditations for Transformation: The Expansive Spirit,” by Jai-Jagdesh.”

Read Part 1 with Kris Carr on Resilience

Read Part 2 with Sera Beak on Unleashing Your Soul’s Voice

Read Part 4 with Danielle LaPorte