Monday, December 3, 2012

A Conversation with Irma Romano (Author of “A Journey In Massage”) on Before It's News



Here's an recent interview done by Juno Cristi 

A Conversation with Irma Romano (Author of “A Journey In Massage”)

Irma Romano is a Registered Massage Therapist who has worked in the profession in Canada for the last six years. She grew up in Lyons France and now resides in Toronto and has created www.massageplanetnews.blogspot.com with the hope of making massage therapy a profession that nourishes the therapist as well as the client. Irma spends her time writing researching, and interviewing healers and experts in the field of healing, body work, entertainment and travel.

Tell me, what’s new about Irma. Who is Irma right now at this very moment?
It’s been a whirlwind in 2012 for me. I started interviewing for my new blog massage planet news early in the spring, became a published author, and started a new temp agency for massage therapists in the span of 7 months. Right now Irma is taking it all in trying to slow down and absorb all this new energy. What is new about Irma is how she has stepped inside her own power, discovered who she really is, forgiven her past, and has become a voice an activist for healers in the world. At this very moment I feel like Irma is also a light worker who has finally come to this conclusion and has nowhere to hide peeling layers of an onion and getting to her core.

You have a new book coming out. Tell me, in a nutshell, what prompted you to write this book?
My New book is out A Journey In Massage which I started to write a summer ago while I was working in Muskoka. In a nutshell the book is a voice for all massage therapists so that the profession can grow into what it is really meant to become. With dignity and respect I show the public what pitfalls to avoid and what massage can really do for them if they choose wisely. For the next generation of massage therapists I take off any rose colored glasses they might have and give them a reality check.

Who are you helping with this book?
This book is really looking after the public all over the world. This book was written with you in mind and then the students, we are all connected and so this book also affects healers, energy workers, so that we can take a glance through the lens of a massage therapist’s experiences and go behind the scenes where the public generally never ventures.

What’s the next 3-5 months going to be like for you? 
The next three to five months are going to be extremely exciting. I am working with Jackie Mckay a marketing genius and a holistic practioner to take a trip within myself and clear a path to my ultimate journey with healing and enjoying my life to the fullest. She has a website called Healers who Prosper and guides any holistic oriented individual into a sound practice using spiritual guidelines and practical ones as well. It’s a perfect combination for me at this time. It is a bit of a mystery what will take place in 5 months but I am learning to surrender and allow a divine power to lead me. I am learning to trust that all is taken care of and to get out of my own way.

Why should we buy this book?
You should buy this book if you want knowledge about massage therapy and what it can do for you but also it guides you into making the best choice possible for yourself. This book is full of warm filled poetry by a special writer and inspirational photos by a very talented artist from France. It makes a good coffee table book and it’s an easy read. It’s essentially a book from the heart.

What, can you say are your top accomplishments in life. Aspects of your life that you can really be proud of. Name 3.
My top accomplishments in life was first deciding to incarnate here at this time, choose my family of origin, and then fall on my face a few times so I could let the light of my consciousness through. I was sent in a coded fashion to heal as a light worker and be a voice of freedom. Healing myself was number one top priority, having empathy now for all living beings, sensing the energy I have running through me and now harnessing it in all that I do but what I am mostly.

Is there anything you still want to do that you haven’t done yet?
I would like to fall in love with my twin flame which is something I have never done. As the layers of the onion get peeled now I feel like this could happen at any time. I also see that using energy work will be a big part of my future which is the now.

If you can change one thing about the massage profession how would you change it?
If I could change the way we get paid and our work conditions I would feel a sense of accomplishment and able to move on to the next stages of my journey.

Your holiday plans. 
During the holidays I meditate and help with homeless organizations and try to spread love. I do not buy a single thing that is of material value. The best gift I can give the world and the people I love is a grounded Irma so you will not find me in a mall, or hosting a diner with people I do not really care for. I actually do a lot of reading and sitting still that time of year. If I am lucky I will be also attempting to travel.

Planning any more new books? 
My next book is already begun. It is called The Body Pantry. This book will be similar to a cookbook but for the body with receipts from head to toe and some spiritual quotes to go along with it. My ultimate project is called Project Gaia a documentary and book on true healing and an exploration of who we really are as humans and what we are really capable of doing. This project will take me across the globe on some exciting travel and explorations.




For more on Irma visit her website http://massageplanetnews.blogspot.com

Get a copy of “A Journey In Massage”



Photos by Alixandra Gould

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

The Secret Codes Our Body Holds by Irma Romano


We all experience illness in our bodies at one point or another. From the flu to pain or chronic illnesses the body is sending you a message but are you listening? As a massage therapist and having gone through my own healing and research I have come to understand that when you ignore the soul the core of which you are it will send you a strong message in the form of pain, illness, and energy blockages. When your soul’s desires and the voice of its cries are ignored we create a break down in our bodies that no external practitioner can heal until we are ready to travel inside. Ignoring your soul’s cries to be herd and to express its mission is the start of the cycle of illness. We must come to understand that we are not really solid beings but energy forms vibrating at different frequencies. Our thoughts meet the body and cause us to have emotional reactions lowering our vibrational frequencies or raising it. There is a place where the vibrational frequencies are so high that illness can no longer linger in our bodies. Beyond the survival game that we play our truth of who we are will want to surface sooner or later and will use whatever portal to come through. Like a plant we are really here to grow our souls. 

When you see an emotion arise in you try to connect with it fully and feel it instead of burying and pretending it is not there. Pain that is not met will come out sooner or later in another form in the body with energy blockages and illness. Getting stuck in emotions for hours, months or years ages us and affects our cells in our bodies are DNA. Bring understanding of your emotional charges to your heart center where it can be dismantled with the light of your consciousness. Your heart is the first organ that is developed in conception and is more intelligent than the human brain.  Fear is the cause of all illness and is the opposite of love.  Supressed anger will give you anything from ulcers to cancer. 

In essence we are the truth, the life, the eternal and the unmanifested in form.  Human Beings have been here for some time never changing the level of consciousness but evolving in technology. The third dimensional consciousness which is an unconscious state of being has created the world we see now. The outer pollution is the individual pollution and is also collective. 

How do we bring healing into the world? What is our true nature? Who are we? What is our purpose here on Earth?  How did man become disconnected from himself and separate from the whole? 

I explore every level of being that we have. We are more than a physical body we have more than one body. How does illness start and how can we look at illness as a message a way that the body communicates to us that there is something not in balance?  We are energy vibrating at a frequency. What destroys that frequency? How can we vibrate at the speed of light and love? . Questions that science alone cannot understand because it is beyond mind it is information accessed through Being and feeling instead. 

We explore energy healing and medicine less hospitals. How to heal with other methods, herbs, and meditation, and we ask the questions that make us look deeper into the truth, the different levels of bodies that we have, the dream state, and shamanism. Is this a more permanent way of bringing about real lasting health? We are healthy by nature and will be able to heal ourselves with our own energy in the near future.

We look at the ego of man and how thoughts create illness in the body, the power of positive thinking and instant manifestation. The power of healing illness is within each one of you. The form of healing you choose is there to assist you to connect to your own energy and soul. There are no magic pills greater than your soul. When your body is sending you a message are you quiet enough to listen? 







Tuesday, November 27, 2012

What Are You Gifting This Holiday Season? by Irma Romano





Only 30 days until Christmas time and the holidays. Many of you will be running around shopping for your loved ones and preparing dinner or hosting for your relatives. My clients share with me how this time of year can add stress in their lives and some of you tell me they really do not enjoy HAVING to go to certain things like entertain relatives at home and deal with certain family members. It has been over two decades since I have been in a mall shopping for Christmas or hosted a Christmas dinner for people I have no intention of spending time with. Removing a sense of obligation and having to justify ourselves to others as to why you’re not showing up for dinner is the first step in claiming back your sanity and living your life on your terms. How other people feel is not your problem. Here are some tips on staying balanced and nurturing yourself for the holiday season.

Be grateful for what you have now. This is a way of increasing abundance in your life. Make a list of the things you do enjoy and that you feel blessed for in your life. This can be anything from the food on the table to your family, your husband and children etc.

Don’t forget to give away your smile to the people that are working to make your holidays special.

Give the gift of a happier you to your loved ones. What you do is pale in comparison to what you are. Who you are inside and how you love yourself affects your family and the people in your life. Think about how you affect others by simply your presence in the room and forget about the material gifts for a second. Do we really need to go out and buy things to show we love someone or are the holidays a great time to dive inside ourselves and give our magnificent being that we are. The center of your giving with the intentions that you have for your giving is more important than the gift itself.

Nurture yourself first so you are able to give to others. Give yourself time and space in silence and get in touch with your inner self. As a massage therapist I recommend you give yourself a massage or give the gift of touch and healing this holiday season to your loved ones.

What is it that you would love to change about your life this year? Would you like to lose weight and get fit? Give yourself or your family the gift of yoga, a book on healthy eating and nutrition, a booking with a naturopathic doctor or homeopath. Join a meditation group or learn a new sport. Challenge yourself for growth and expand your energy. Here are some of my gift ideas for the holidays.

Massage Therapy: Try a different type of massage you haven’t tried before there are so many to choose from.

Facials and pampering: Give yourself a break and get some skin and make-up advice from your local spa.

Nutrition: There are alternative ways to deal with illness and weight loss this year has you tried talking to a Naturopathic Doctor about health issues you are having?

Books: Read something that inspires you and lifts you up, so many books on health, wellness, spirituality, raw foods, something to inspire you and see the world from another angle.

Green Gifts: Look for water bottles, coffee mugs that lessen the stress on the environment there are so many green gifts.

Yoga Passes: If you haven’t tried yoga and think you would like to start get yoga matt and look around your community for classes.

Meditation: try to meditate this year and see how your life shifts when you stop the noise in your head moving from ego to spirit. Get in touch with the inner self.

Travel: You can also opt to travel instead of spending too much on things and make it a family adventure.

Here are my favorite books for this year to touch the soul.

Dying to be Me by Anita Moorjani
Wishes Fulfilled by Dr.Wayne Dyer
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
Ascending With Both Feet on the Ground by Jeff Brown
Don’t Fear Change CHANGE FEAR by Juno Cristi
Heal your Body by Louise Hay
Live Raw by Mimi Kirk
Clean Eating by Tosca Reno
The Reconnection by Dr. Eric Pearl
I lost My Job and I Liked It by Lilou Mace

What are your favorite books? What has inspired you to shift energy and center yourself? I would love to hear about your story of transformation and what you wish to achieve for 2013. I will be sharing your stories and favorite reads on Massage Planet News.

Remember to take a look at my new book A Journey In Massage, a book that was intended to also shift the way we see massage therapists and help a new generation of healers.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

How To Make Money In The Massage World by Irma Romano



How to make money in the massage world? First live in a powerful place within yourself by casting fear out of your life. Make the well being of your clients a priority not Money. Things will fall into place when you connect to a higher consciousness. How does your business serve others? Or are you just creating wealth with no spiritual foundations? You will not find yourself in the material world its just another ego trip. A Course In Miracles says “to whatever extent a project or business contributes healing of some form to society; to that extent the project is blessed. Blessing means mystical support and protection.”

You can fullfill your higher purpose in life without comparing yourself with others. Show case your uniqueness and follow your own power no amount of coaching on a material level alone will give you joy or serve and heal anyone. The question is What do you have to offer to your clients and why do they want to work with you? Your motivation for money and selling should be based on PURPOSE and JOY vs. FEAR, ANGER, or PROVING yourself.

Friday, November 16, 2012

THE MARKETING COACH : DON’T DISCOUNT A DISCOUNT (By Cary Bayer)




If you’re gifted, once people are on your table, it’s important that you work to get them to that table.  If you’re good, they’ll come back, so how do you get more of them there?  That’s the $64,000 question that many massage therapists ask me in CE workshops and private coaching sessions.  There are many ways to do that.  I’ll describe one in this column. It’s particularly useful for anyone new to an area, who’s just added a new modality, or for any practice that’s added a new therapist.

You’ve no doubt seen restaurants and retail stores in their first few weeks--grand opening signs are still up, bunting is still present, and introductory prices are often available.  Massage therapists can profit from similar introductory prices. Who can resist a $60 massage marked down to $30, or even $20?  Sure, you might attract bargain hunters lured by a cut-rate massage, but chances are good you’ll attract many people who get massaged regularly, who’ll try you out because of the sale.  If they like you better than their current therapist, they may switch to you. You’ll also attract new people to massage, all of whom can become regular clients.  If you get a new client from this strategy, who sees you once a month for three years, that client will be worth nearly $2,200—and that doesn’t include the clients she refers to you. If you could get $2,200 in business by investing just $30 (the discount for an introductory session), wouldn’t you be willing to do it?

So what’s stopping you?



Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Stop HURTING, Start HEALING (Healing the Loss of Loved Ones with Suzane Northrop) Nov 29, Dec 1 and Dec 2 , Toronto ON





Struggling with the loss of a loved one? Feeling confused, alone, depressed? Want to know if your loved one is well and happy?

Suzane Northrop is a leading expert on bereavement and the grieving process. She has helped thousands worldwide heal from the loss of loved ones, and now she’s coming to Toronto!

In addition to her top selling books, Everything Happens for a Reason (now published in 4 languages) and Second Chance: Healing Messages from the Afterlife, Suzane is breaking new ground yet again with her most recent release, A Medium’s Cookbook: Recipes for the Soul. In this book, Suzane shares tips and tools for us all to begin tapping into our own power to connect with loved ones.

The Afterlife, Suzane’s Emmy-nominated TV series, has captured the imagination and hearts of millions in both the U.S. and Canada, demonstrating Suzane’s unparalleled talent as a Medium and her profound impact on those who experience her work. The Suzane Northrop Radio Show continues to reach new and amazed audiences every month on the Blog Talk Radio Network.

This is a rare opportunity to experience Suzane’s unmatched insight and talent in an engaging event. During the Seminar, you will learn and experience first hand the possibilities of profound healing when we reconnect with your loved ones, reconnect with love, reconnect with knowing that love truly never dies! To learn more about Suzane Northrop, visit www.SuzaneNorthrop.com

 “Her gift is in the clarity of her message.”  John Edward, Psychic Medium & Host of TV show, Crossing Over


  To learn more and to register, visit 

***EXTRA EVENT***
SUZANE’S PRIVATE GALLERY READING (Limit 15 attendees)
Sunday, December 2nd 6:30-8:00pm @ Wonderworks Bookstore 
79a Harbord Street, Toronto, ON M5S 1G4, Tel.  416-323-3131
For details and to reserve a seat, please visit: www.SuzaneNorthrop.com




Friday, November 9, 2012

The Birth of We’ve Got Your Back Toronto



My decision to open a temp agency for massage therapists came out of the desire to help the people who need it and the people I love. First it allowed me to help massage therapists all over the world make money and thrive which was long overdue and second I wanted to help my soul sister Juno Cristi.

Only 7 months prior I met Juno online her writing Soulspeak caught my attention and I contacted the single mom from the Philippians who was living in San Francisco. Her book A Drop of Petals 101 poems from the heart sits on my dresser  “ I am a flower… and I need to always remember that if I open my heart I bloom…and even when a flower is broken that flower is still beautiful… “Her words touch the soul and are written from a space of sorrow and source of being. I know the words very well and what they convey because they are my story and my own heart.

The world is unconscious and is shifting into awakening in order to regain its balance which was lost hundreds of thousands of years ago. Incarnation into the physical realm is not a decision of the weak for the soul knows what lays ahead in its journey and is brave enough to come here in the denser reality anyways. Some life forms last a few seconds and others a few years others come here to change in the shift and others are takers. They take from the earth with no regard for the animals and eco system in order to have material gain at the expense of Gaia and their fellow men. This has been the case in our history but has become very prominent in our present decade.  All you have to do is pick up a history book and read about the wars the killings and the destruction which seems to be so innate in the evolution of mankind. When the balance becomes so undone and the earth can no longer function as a result things begin to shake the way we have seen lately with earth quakes and hurricanes, the climate changes and the pollution, the pretend wealth of the west and the exploitation in the east.

Consciousness at this time is becoming conscious all over the universe and it is the next step in our evolution. Man’s ego and mind when in the driver’s seat is capable of the cruelest acts towards the environment and other humans. In general a human who does not go beyond mind is not capable of wrapping life around LOVE and only has a concept of it in ideas and metal attachments just like using the word GOD it makes it into a story and loses its truth in the process.  There is no use for these words that sit empty when actions are laced in fear killing, and destruction. Where is God now?
My soul decided to be here at this time and sits right here at this moment while you read my words. It knew its journey ahead of time and decided to meet the people it was supposed to and endure what it had to in order to understand the power of Love. The road I embarked on since birth is one of uphill battles sometime leaving me in utter darkness of the collective consciousness of the whole and of generational collective and I always go back wondering to myself “You are one Strong Soul” I have been bent, uprooted, fragmented, beaten, used, the victim the perpetuator, the actor on stage and the director. I came out with the grace of source vibrating at high speed and understanding that no mind is knowing who I really was. It brought me closer to my soul each and every painful event was a path towards the light and at the end of the road I was face to face with my own truth. I was face to face with Juno.

Her poetry grace the pages of my first book “A Journey In Massage” her wisdom at such a young age is unparalleled to anyone I have met so far with a few exceptions. Her pain is also my pain and no words are needed for me to try to understand her sorrow I have been in the story books myself sliding into the rabbit hole a few times.

Today I thank my poverty, my lack, my addictions, my darkness, my struggles, my conflicts, all the hurdles for allowing the light to come through so powerfully and to have given me the power to heal and understand love in all its totality and the reason for my birth. This day would not be so joyful with all the thorns I collected along the way. I also never look back or forward I stay in the moment and when my energy wants to pretend to be me I sit still.  It has melted the strongest armour that had me captive unable to move with freedom and grace for so many years. I understand what is important and allow the World of illusions disappear for it has no hold on me anymore and it no longer entices me in any way. I understand that love is beyond fear and mind, I see that being attached to material things and tittles is the path we have now of sorrow and illness. There is only one truth and one ending to any story. You will not find yourself in anything in the world but you will find your soul in silence when there is no more noise that is when the light will come to meet you. When you allow this moment to be the way it is.

The desire to give and help others is what motivates me. The accumulation of wealth may or may not come and when it does I will share it with my soul family and elevate not take away. This is the only path to the heart. The heart of Gaia and all of humanity and it is also the way to your own light. When I say that we’ve got your back I really mean it.




Thursday, November 1, 2012

My Declaration of Love


How do you Love? 
Your imagination painting on a blank canvas of time 
The future holds empty promises of salvation 
Leaving you standing in the lonely fields of sorrow
Wondering if you will ever arrive 
Drawing conclusions on conceptual ideals 
Of where and how Love will be

When do you Love?
Chained by the psychological clock 
Ticking aimlessly and endlessly pulling your heart 
Towards wanting and needing spinning the wheels
In reverse sinking you deeper in quick sand
Past experiences playing phantom roles that never 
Seem to ever have an end tirelessly watching the 
Stories playing like a broken record stored in your 
Memories pretending to be real 
“Your Life?”

Where do you grow Love?
Are the roots digging deep in the earth’s belly? 
With no obstacles no sticks or stones strong enough 
To stop the desire for growth 
The seeds you sow finally peeking their heads 
Towards blue skies with the curiosity and 
Excitement like the first promises that life holds for 
A new born life
Complete with no polarities or asking for permission 
In being 

Where do you find Love? 
Nourished by the light, love grows with no sacrifices 
Or compromises in the present moment 
Fearlessly and tenderly it seeks nothing and chases 
Nothing
Not bound in time it grows deep beyond the mind
Invisible and yet powerful its omnipresence to heal 
And give life is untouchable desired by all as the 
Source of joy and unity of all living creatures
In the stillness and silence Love grows within 
Leaving nothing untouched along its path excluding 
No one 

You cannot find Love it is never lost it sits quietly 
In all eternity within the deep corners of your heart 
“Healing has its roots in unconditional Love.”
It seeks nothing and gives everything. 










Sunday, October 28, 2012

Interview with Franco DeNicola on Wellness (Part 2)




Assisting humanity beyond collective perceptions, adopted beliefs, accepted limitations and archaic concepts in order to awaken to our ultimate soul purpose and to collectively create a world encompassing total harmony and wholeness. I am so blessed and honored to share my interview with Franco De Nicola.


For more on Franco De Nicola visit his website  www.francodenicola.com



Friday, October 26, 2012

Irma Romano interviews Franco DeNicola on Wellness (Part 1)




Assisting humanity beyond collective perceptions, adopted beliefs, accepted limitations and archaic concepts in order to awaken to our ultimate soul purpose and to collectively create a world encompassing total harmony and wholeness. I am so blessed and honored to share my interview with Franco De Nicola.


For more on Franco De Nicola visit his website  www.francodenicola.com

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Love and Fear and Living Beyond Our Limitations



Two days ago I had a massage therapist on Facebook ask what the System is. She didn’t like my answers or addressed my questions and ran off of Facebook like a Cat off a Hot Tin Roof pressing down on her own trigger points with mental concepts looking at my words and not really looking with an open heart. It seems like she is capable of writing books on how to have a successful practice so much so I actually had her interviewed which I don’t do very lightly. I interview people with who are highly evolved beings of light and love and who have something of value to add to the world. What we should look at though when you open a practice is how many hours does that leave you with because not everyone equates success with money many like myself enjoy freedom instead to be with family and to do other things with their time. That’s why I bought the 4 Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris and that is why he sold over ten million copies of his book and is the Number one New York Times best seller, Published in 35 countries he went from making 40 thousand dollars a year working 80 hours a week to 40 thousand a month and working 4 hours a week. Work anywhere in the world and trade in a long haul career for short work bursts and frequent mini- retirements. In other words unplug yourself from the way it was always done. That’s how we do it and making the good opinion of others matter to you which keeps you stuck where you are now. People want to free up time and like Timothy many want to know how to also make more money while they do what they love, possible to achieve? Why not? Every acquaintance I have met in the last two years who have succeeded in networking businesses left their jobs as soon as they could. Massage Therapists, lawyers, doctors, teachers, and police officers and very few said that they loved their job so much they wanted to stay there. In a world where we work more for less slamming the door to nine to five seemed like a good option. I work with my pyjamas on now and I am raising my kids and I enjoy the freedom that sixty thousand dollars a month provides for me and my family. This is not text book cartoon characters they are actual people I know.
The subject of meaningless work came up as I was referring directly from Timothy’s book as he has a full chapter on the idea that we can look busy but not be productive. 8 hours a day is not necessarily equal to productive. We can probably cut our hours in half and do the same amount of work, thank you Timothy Ferriss for opening up our minds about the fact that exchange of hours for money is not the best way to free up time or become wealthy. I wonder if Timothy Ferriss gets as much resistance as I did for saying this himself. My point than was don’t worry no one will take away your 40 hour work week, and no one will take away your ideas of how you want to live your life. You created it and where you are now is a sum total of your own belief systems. To each their own and that is why life is so beautiful you get to pick how and with who you spend it. We like our addictions to drama a lot of the time and that means living within our own limitations created by our minds. I no longer focus on how to be a rich massage therapist or interview based on those principals there are enough books out there on these topics and I like to free up the mind instead not teach about financial success. The foundation of success lies first with the amount of consciousness you bring out into the world. If what you do poisons the environment and causes suffering for others than you have to look at what success really is. If you can’t conduct yourself on a daily bases with dignity especially in front of your peers no amount of book writing is going to make any difference. Success starts in your heart. If something someone says hurts you than it is a good indication that this is where you are stuck and need work. Insults towards another are a double edge sword it poisons you and everyone around you by leaving your fingerprint in the web of life that connects everything that exists. It has an effect in the un-manifested dimension more powerful than the world of form. Lose your weapons your bibles and your morals they are just ideologies and mental concepts used to divide which is the opposite of true consciousness.
Is it Rude of me to share an opinion about the System when I say that we are not separate from the whole and that the old egoic structures that are in place still today have created an unbalance on the planet that is destroying the environment, killing humans and other species in the name of progress and that if we all saw how connected we are to it all we would think twice before speaking and trying to hurt someone by attacking them for the only purpose of inflating ourselves. This is the same individual who told me I shouldn’t be calling myself a Healer a month ago. Once more seeing not with an open mind but with more judgment and not actually reading what was there. Like many others I like to be the door of other perceptions and allow healing modalities to come through by sharing of other people’s stories and experiences. I did ask finally and commented that we already had the cure for cancer years ago and that we could live now free of fossil fuels and eradicate suffering and famine on a global scale if we wanted to. The fact that it hadn’t already happen was because someone at the top of the decision making pyramid is making a lot of money with the old system. Here in America and around the world. Progress is for the good of all humans and not just a few. We live in a world of abundance where shelter, food, and clothing can be given to everyone on a global scale. Why has it not happened yet? What is this concept of ownership of land and things? You tell me.
Being a massage therapist is a path I have been on for the last six years. I honour it but feel like I have grown in terms of adding another dimension which is more holistic and spiritual because for me and not for everyone, I feel like true healing starts with our higher selves. I see myself clearly walking away from doing massage therapy in the next year or so in order to evolve into another path. I follow my own intuition and instincts when it comes to what I do and how I do it not motivated by making just money or being successful in worldly terms but rather allowing things to unfold as they should.
If you feel stuck on Survival ask yourself how you landed there and how you can climb out. But first you have to ask the questions to get the answers and it takes an open heart and mind to get there. No one can come and save us and turn us into leaders that is something each individual most do for themselves. Try taking responsibility for your own fears instead of blaming someone or thing outside of yourself for pissing you off and making you angry. Anger is generated by your thoughts not the actual situation in front of you. Three days ago I was on the highway and a car was trying to run me off the road only a few centimetres away from my bumper. I was the cause of his irritation and frustration. In his mind I was not driving fast enough. You are not the cause of such behaviour in others and each of us is a container of love or fear. You cannot give out to the world what you don’t already have inside. Take responsibility for your own inner space and how you behave and perceive the world. I am not responsible for your behaviour just as you’re not responsible for someone’s perceptions and ideas of how the world turns. When you don’t take offense or react to what anyone does or says you are free. No one can diminish you with insults or verbal attacks. There is nothing there to diminish or derive unless your ego is very much in the driver’s seat.
Don’t be afraid of letting go of people and situations that do not honour you and individuals that do not love you for who you are. Love doesn’t have an opposite force. It doesn’t love one minute and then a second later hates. Love is who we are and it comes into the world through us. You can’t love your employees, family, and friends and hate the people on welfare or the bums over there. Real love is not selective like that or judgmental, you don’t get to pick and choose who and what to love because you are love. Let those people go in a loving way and wish them well as they are also evolving at their own pace. When you return home to your true nature all you have to give is joy, peace, and love. If you cannot love everything and everyone around you with no exceptions than even your thoughts about your partner the idea of a romantic relationship is more likely an addiction and not love unless your bring a level of consciousness and awakening along with you. The old system works on the ego and it likes to divide and conquer but we already see where that will lead us and that is not the world we want to hand down to our children and humanity. What is the System? Anything we create.

Words of Wisdom by Eckhart Tolle



“But the ego is destined to dissolve, and all its ossified structures, whether they be religious or other institutions, corporations, or governments, will disintegrate from within, no matter how deeply entrenched they appear to be. The most rigid structures will collapse first. There are many more surprises in store for us.”

“When faced with a radical crisis, when the old way of being in the world, of interacting with each other and with the realm of nature doesn’t work anymore, when survival is threatened by seemingly insurmountable problems, an individual life form or a species will either die or become extinct or rise above the limitations of its condition through an evolutionary leap.”

“What is arising now is not a new belief system, a new religion, spiritual ideology, or mythology. We are coming to the end not only of mythologies but also of ideologies and belief systems. The change goes deeper than your thoughts. In fact, at the heart of the new consciousness lies the transcendence of thought.”

If we live in fear, limitation, and egoist structures than we pass this world on to the next generation whatever is left of it. The collective nightmare of human existence,, ideologies and belief systems that give you a false sense of self and used to make yourself right and others wrong sits on a weak foundation. Feeling offended is another way your ego likes to keep itself in place.  Is our world the way it is at this moment going to shift and I believe that it will or will it be destroyed by the greed and unconsciousness of its leaders and blind followers? When the delusion of being separate from the whole kicks in what world do I create? The level of consciousness dictates the world we will create and if it remains unchanged it will keep repeating the same dysfunctions over and over again. We are more than what we are told we are from birth. Outside the four walls of societal structures is the return to our true selves.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Going Beyond Survival By Living On Purpose




The list of clients I see that are burnt out from their jobs is endless and the state of unhappiness made of mere survival is an epidemic. Most people feel trapped by having to wake up each morning and exchange time for money. If given a way out they would walk away from their hum drum existence and do what they really want to do. In fact most people I personally know who went from professions and into making millions of dollars with networking businesses all left their jobs. Some were teachers, others lawyers, massage therapists, and police officers. What does that say about nine to five? Do you want more time and freedom to live your life and enjoy what really matters? Who doesn’t?

Doing less meaningless work is not being lazy.  We live in a society that creates well-adjusted slaves not productivity and so the worst way to work is by exchanging time for money. If you are putting up with a non-ideal existence and allow others to define life for you and your doing it by allowing time and years pass you by watching life happen instead of enjoying and living it than no matter how much money you make doing mindless work  is not necessarily for the good of all or productive. Do not allow a world out there tell you how many hours you need to spend at work to make a living when you’re paying the price with your life and freedom. If you’re waking up every morning feeling lifeless and joyless sucked into a routine pretending that money will fix it all you know you’re fooling yourself. Money is something we have in place and the more you want the more you are trapped in the game. Do you want a job or do you want to live your life on purpose? Do you want to survive or thrive? Do you want to chase money and never arrive at feeling satisfied or do you want freedom to enjoy the one life you have?

When your job is boring you to death and most people are in that circumstance of life more time or more money will not liberate you. If you’re living your life in fear of quitting your job or waiting for retirement to free you to eventually do what you love that time might and most likely will never come unless you take the initiative to cut the chains that tie you to surviving. Are you waiting for a diagnosis of cancer to say you’re now going to have a bucket list and travel the world? Is that what it takes to awaken you and make you see what is really important in life and that with your permission you allow others to manipulate and dictate there values on how you should be living and what it means to be successful. If you’re using your kids and mortgage as an excuse for not living out your true passion than I say you teach them by example and you should teach them that it is possible to live life fully and go beyond survival.

Living in regret is a wasted of full life potential. Allowing life to pull you by the nose is a life of slow death and I say not everyone was born to really experiment freedom and joy because some people are still very much attached to the tribal mentality and societal rules as it makes them feel safe and that is also an illusion. When you start to live outside the four walls that was implemented by others who have their best interest invested in you not noticing you will pull yourself out of mere survival into actual aliveness. If joy, excitement, enthusiasm is not present in your work than work is a means to an end and will keep you feeling numb in the service of nothing.

We have a system in place of rules and should and should not’s that was created but is neither the absolute truth nor does it have to be a way of life. If businesses are produced as a means to an end and poisons our environment and makes everyone miserable in the process as most of them do than there is no success and no reason for it is existence.  Real businesses are for the good of all for the good of humanity and do not leave victims in its creation. Eighty percent of our consumption is not necessary and the marketing world would go belly up if the masses would disengage from the manipulation of consumerism feeding our egos and leaving us feeling empty. How much do you need to actually live? You would be surprised. Eliminating wanting is the first step to freedom and living within your means. This will free up your time to travel, and create work that is meaningful for you and others around you. Wealth, health, a roof over our heads is a basic need for everyone not just a few and we are much more than what we are lead to believe. There is enough to go around for all of humanity and if it hasn’t already happened than someone doesn’t want it to happen. We can move towards a different world eliminating many systems that are in place that are just band aids that are not going to the core of the symptoms. A shift in the collective consciousness has to happen to move things in different directions. As more people question the status quo and seek to be of true service to the whole the world will change and if not it will put all species on earth into a real danger of elimination and more destruction.

I encourage each of you to take your life into your own hands and do with it something meaningful while you still can. This moment is all anyone of us have and the life that you are is yours alone no one can come save you if you don’t want to step outside the box and lead your own way. In the end we are all accountable for our actions because we are one with all life that pulses through the universe and we affect the life forms around us with our state of mind, emotions, thoughts, and actions. The changes start with you.



Thursday, October 18, 2012

Marina Fricke, 85 And Loving Life



Marina is 85 years old with dark hair and piercing eyes. She loves nature and works with her hands sculpting the rocks she sees with shaping them with love. She told me to never be afraid of dying because everything in nature comes to life and than returns back to where it came from. "We are more than our bodies and bones", she tells me with a smile on her face.



When I first looked into her blue eyes there was a sparkle and light that was intense and penetrating. Marina is an old woman who does sculptures for a living and loves nature. She likes to ask you questions if you sit with her for a while and I have had the pleasure to stay on her property which exposes her art with the stones and wood pieces that have odd shapes and faces an extension of her imagination. 

During Wold War Two she escaped Eastern Europe with her brothers and sisters in the middle of winter with horses deep into the woods hiding for German soldiers. With death only a few inches away from her she finally collapsed in a ditch on the side of the road after days of not having any food to eat. It was a German priest who found them and took them into his church hiding them from the Nazi and feeding them for five years.  

Marina came to Canada a few years later on a boat with hundreds of Eastern Europeans. She eventually made her way to northern Ontario and developed a passion for rocks. She saw shapes in them and had a desire to make them come to life. Everyone discouraged her at first telling her she was wasting her time. A woman’s place was in the kitchen.  But her love for the rocks and nature kept her going and eventually she made a living with her sculptures in a way that she could not have imagined herself. Ten thousand dollars and more people paid for her work. They disappeared like hot cakes in every show and galleries in Canada and the United States. School buses made their way to her home with children admiring her work. Her hobby paid for all of her four children’s education and the property which was six acres and three homes. She was well known but never liked being the center of attention. She remains humble and down to earth. My favorite story that Marina told me was about her son Charlie. He was born with severe asthma and as a young boy   the doctors told her he would not make it. She refused to listen to them and found herself with Charlie in New York City to meet Mara Haji the Indian Guru who was on a tour. He took Charlie by the hand and started to meditate with him. Marina was surprised that her son closed his eyes and meditated without moving for so long. He told Marina to not worry anymore that her son would not die. She said it felt like God had spoken to her and she felt relieved. Charlie never had asthma again and moved on to living a normal life. A few weeks before he had a death sentence and medication that made him worse with each dose he took. 





Marina also lost her husband to cancer in her early fifties. She said he had thanked the Lord for giving him the illness because it had made him more connected to spirit. He glowed she told me at the end of his life and she took my hand as she told me the story and said that one should never fear death because it is a normal stage of life. Look around you she said the birds and flowers come and go and so do we. No big deal. Even all the books on religion and scriptures tell you that we are more than this pile of bones and she said it with such conviction.  She is at peace with death and has made it into her friend. She gave me an insight into my own death. Her positivity gave me an instant sense of peace. 

Marina is full of spirit and lust for her life, the rocks that she shapes with her hands, the animals in the woods and nature.  I have never met anyone like her. Someone who is 85 yet has hardly any grey hairs and can work twelve hours in her gardens weeding, and watering her flowers. Marina asked me a question as she always does. She asked me what was going to happen in the world because our generation does not work the way hers did. Well I listened and could not really answer her question. How could I tell this woman that the world was changing now and shifting rapidly and that the word work was soon going to be changed for another one?

Marina is a living legend and when she dies her work and her sculptures will tell the story of her life.  I will never be able to look at a rock without thinking of her. Spending time with her is like watching a world on its own evolving and I am so glad we were able to cross paths. When a soul like Marina is born with such struggles early on in life it opens them to a spiritual dimension. When you see death so closely and lose all your material possessions what else is there? The fear melts away because you have already transmuted so much pain and are laughing at the face of adversity. A new door opens up for you and you become immune to attachment to form. You already have learned that things come and they go. Material things are here sometimes and they can be taken away. When your belly has felt the pain of hunger it has gratitude for a full plate when it is available. She already knew at a young age that we are more than our bodies that we are souls and that death could not take that away.  There is only abundance and joy in the voice and heart of this woman. When she is ready to return home she will surrender to the moment with peace leaving behind a story and legacy of Love behind. 







Friday, October 12, 2012

Negativity and Gossip at the Workplace by Irma Romano


Do you work in a negative environment full of gossip, back stabbing, bullying, and plain negativity? Most work places are founded on the above and are on the increase. So much so that there are new programs at work that discusses these topics on a large scale and Corporations have to cover themselves in case of a lawsuit. How did this come into being? 

Complaining about things or gossiping when someone is not there to defend themselves is a form of negativity that spreads more rapidly than diseases.  These are also habitual programs from our childhood that is passed on from generation to generation and become automatic no thinking required. This is how a world of hate and violence keeps itself in place. 

If there is a problem to be solved being negative will sink you deeper into negativity and you will manifest more of what you do not want. Complaining makes you into a victim and victims do not have choices this is a form of addiction which starts with pain and ends with pain. Gossip is a malicious intent  to try to make yourself morally superior to someone else because what you are really saying is I am living in fear and I feel inferior. Tell your ego to take a break there is a life beyond pain. 

We are all connected to this life all humans all forms animals and plants, and to hurt someone else is to hurt yourself. If you could actually see the interconnectedness that we are beyond the five senses you would drop suffering and take responsibility for your own inner space. Many of the complainers say they believe in God. Yet it is more important to allow God or the Source to manifest every moment of your life through your words and actions. It is more powerful to be conscious than to believe in anything with an empty heart and hands. If you could see the ravages your actions have on your own well-being and the manifestations that it has in your physical body you would think twice about being negative. The universe does not know if you’re talking about someone else your yourself. 

You have three choices when it comes to work. You can quit your job, ask for a change with no negativity or taking it personally therefore not spreading the disease of negativity around anymore, or accepting what you have in front of you. All other choices are a state of unconsciousness and madness. Are you banging your head against a wall and addicted to pain? 

Your words are either destructive or constructive and everything that you do and say stays here in the matrix of life in the Universe yes good old Karma. Your words can be a weapon of hate or love. The Universe first came into being with sounds energy and vibration the very fabric of what you are as well. To be able to be abundant in life and to have the life that you desire you need to stay in a state of love not hate not using your words to demolish and destroy as a weapon. If you have a need to speak badly about someone especially while they are not present ask yourself what it is about you that feel inferior?  What you see in others is also in you.  

Choose love. See how from this state of being you can build a life of prosperity and wellness.  We really do not need Human Resources or the Ten Commandments if were all awake. These rules are designed to keep unconscious individual in a state of fear so that they do not act out there toxicity onto others, a small cry from living in a world where this is not needed anymore and we can all live in joy and peace. Yet it is possible and the change begins with you. 


Tuesday, October 9, 2012

The Art of Negotiation for Massage Therapists by Irma Romano

It wasn’t until I decided to launch my new business We Got Your Back Toronto that the art of negotiation really kicked in for me. My new business will be replacing sick, quit on the spot, extra hands required type of scenario in the city of Toronto starting November first this year. My business template will be implemented all across Canadian cities geared towards resorts and spas. The rate will be a 70/30 split on the hourly rates the spa has on the menu for the massage therapist and a 80/20 split on weekends and holidays. There will be an administration fee for the office which will likely make the therapist a minimum of eighty five dollars an hour or more with a minimum hourly rate of three hours and maximum of five depending on each massage therapist’s limitations and desires. They will also be charged the day of service.

In a world where most therapists in Toronto have had a wage reduction with an increasing charge to the clients starting at one hundred and twenty dollars an hour and the chains of fast food types of businesses have popped up leaving the therapist a non- livable wage even if they live at home with mom and dad it was time for a change. Long gone are the days of eating mac and cheese and ramen noodles after working forty hours a week at a twenty-something hourly rate, or less being exploited with a schedule that is too little or too big leaving you with over used injuries and an empty wallet. What’s in your wallet? Dust mites and a maxed out credit card?

Not every massage therapist wants to open a clinic or a space of their own and if they do they are at least calling the shots doing massages on their terms. This is the vision I have for all massage therapist where a profession with such high professional fees and where the demand is on the increase by the public I say it’s time to see the massage therapist get a living wage. Unlike nurses who benefit from a standard wage and union decreasing exploitation and burnt out we haven’t had anyone protect the massage therapist who is often too afraid to speak up and negotiate. Here in Canada we are lucky that our clients are covered in most jobs for massage therapy. It’s a no brainer. The spas really want your license numbers which gives them permission to charge the big bucks and have a very lucrative business. Millions of dollars a year are made and thousands a month by burning everyone out.  Who pays the 700 dollar a year fees that we have to pay?  That also becomes our burden.

Negotiations is an opinion you hold in your mind about how much something costs and how much you think you should get paid. Twenty-odd dollars an hour with no benefits is not a life for our professionals. I would think we are at least worth fifty if not more in a day and age where homes cost a lung and kidney and the cost of living has also doubled. So why are we walking backwards? I really challenge you out there if you are making only ten dollars an hour or a bit more to think about why you are crawling on your hands and knees and starving yourself to death? Maybe your addicted to pain and drama?  Seriously you should consider a job at Starbucks for a better wage and please stop telling yourself it’s a steady income. It’s a steady income of starvation and anything else you do will be more profitable including dog walking. Other medical professionals make much more and drive off into the sunset with their BMW why not us? Why not us? I have to witness my colleagues get rid of their cars and having to cut back on groceries and rent to make it or work at four different jobs. At a tuition cost of twelve thousand dollars a year not counting other fees and a two to three year sacrifice and board exams including having to show the college every three years our continued education at a cost of an average of three hundred dollars a course why can’t we be respected finally? We also have to work along aestheticians who have a three week massage course and get exploited even more but the client pays the same?  We make everyone else rich but ourselves. Its 2012 already lets step out of the dark ages together.

If your faucets are leaking and you call the plumber does he send you an invoice or do you tell him how much it will cost? We are in a position where we need to let employers know how much we cost, especially in seasonal remote locations. Bring your terms and conditions and have them sign it or walk out. If we all did this together than they would have no other choice.  Aim high nothing under eighty-five dollars or a 70/30 split on their hourly rate if you value your hands and your family, but most of all yourself. Set your limits where you feel comfortable. Only slaves ask for permission for days off, vacations, and the permission on a pay rate or how many massages they can do.  Are you a slave or a professional? Do you want to see your fellow therapists do well like yourself and make a buck or are you in it for just yourself?  If a spa charges one hundred and twenty dollars an hour and more but you only see twenty dollars of it whose fault is it? You just cheated yourself out of another forty thousand dollars a year so imagine what you could do with that money?  If they test the bar and see that massage therapists take the abuse they will feel like they can keep rolling back the wages and they do because they can. I’ll do it for two dollars an hour? Why not for a loonie? When do we stop giving our power away? Twenty dollars an hour after five hours is only 115 dollars for your day leaving the spa with 485 dollars your hands killing you and your wallet empty. Forty five dollars an hour when a spa charges one hundred and sixty is still no improvement.   What would your life look like at eighty five dollars an hour or more? Do you want to go home with a minimum of five hundred dollars a day? You can and it is possible you just have to claim it. Don’t complain just claim it and tell them what you want and you will be given your fair shake. Live in fear and you will limit yourself financially and emotionally. It is your hands and your license do what you want with them they feed you and clothe you or maybe they won’t it always up to you. Unlike Cinderella we do not have fairy godmothers that will come save the day.  Don’t be afraid to negotiate and ask right out of college for your fair share of income.

Don’t let anyone tell you that sitting, waiting for a walk in is your job when they are not paying you anything no one works for free, or that you should be making forty-five or fifty dollars an hour it’s all up to you when no one is paying your benefits and you have to pay for your taxes, and make sure your covered if you get injured which our profession is at a higher risk of doing. Who is paying for your medical expenses if you fall and break your arm? If you live in a major city in the United States you can implement my business motto and see how well you do for yourself. Here in Toronto like in New York, Chicago, Boston, LA etc., there are more than two hundred spas sprawling everywhere paying very little and keeping too much. You can set your own rules and make a great living. Again it really is up to you to go out there and make a difference for yourself and others so what are you waiting for? If you’re an aesthetician here is your chance to work in more than one place at your rate and also make your profession a lucrative one setting your limits to facials, make-up and nails.  Let me know how you are making a difference in the massage profession and how you think we can improve our future with your tips and ideas.

What would a union do for all registered massage therapists in Canada?
It would insure the end of exploitation and abuse in the spa and clinical industry across the country. First it would define what full- time is and what part-time hours are. Our profession is not like an office job and full-time is 20 to 25 hours a week with full benefits. No therapist would be hired for fewer than sixty five dollars an hour and we could eliminate tipping which usually goes missing anyways. We would be entitled to benefits, vacation pay, unemployment benefits and sick benefits and it would also mean we would be paid for walk- INS and not expected to wait around for free. It would give a guideline of what our duties are. The profession would finally be recognized and respected as what it is a medical much in demand profession by the public.


Friday, October 5, 2012

Why The Fight Against Cancer Does Not Work




These days when I see a pink ribbon for cancer awareness my skin crawls. The words war against and fight against is a mindset that holds illness in place even more deeply and creates enemies. The war against drugs, crime, cancer, poverty, has failed over time and in fact it has actually increased instead of decreasing it.

The Medical Community and the Big Pharmaceutical Companies

Maybe it is for reason that the medical community’s symbol is a snake wrapped around a stick? The third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer is medical treatments itself. But they don’t tell you that in the media. The sad truth is that pills bring about brand new ills and like the antibiotic which we thought was a cure for infections it has created epidemics of more powerful strains of bacteria and caused more problems. There is big money to be made from creating fear and prescription drugs. If your doctor sits across from you with a pad and pen every time you go for a visit then you know they are not for you or concerned for your well being. Doctors are part of a system that brainwashes them in school to be drug dealers more than healers.

The belief in a Label that someone attaches to your condition keeps it even more in place. You suffer from this and that. Well good for you now we know who you are. The fight against anything limits you and distorts reality. Use an approach to your illness by not making it into an enemy. Pain and illness is a messenger.
What are we? We are sound energy with a vibrational frequency, beyond mere flesh and bones. Your illness starts in the invisible realm of energy and then manifests itself in the body years later. Do you hold a lot of fear in your thoughts, and negativity of any kind? Mind energy which runs our world now is limited and destructive. Unlike spiritual energy which vibrates at a higher frequency of love and light. If your vibrational frequency is low it vibrates at the level of illness. What lowers your frequency is mostly held pain in the mind. What else creates the increase of cancer that we see in our world? Our toxic environment the belief that we are separate to the earth the living being we like to call Gaia. She is our food and we are killing her.

Microwaves
Plastic
Montesano and GMO seeds
Fluoride in our water
Pesticides
Vaccinations 200 before the age of two attacking the developing immune system in children causing ADD ADHD and Autism
Fast Food and Processed Food/ meat with antibiotics and corn feed animals.
Sugar and Salt
Pills
Pop cans and cans in general
Artificial flavours
Underground electrical wires
Hair and make-up products
Cleaning products

These and more are a breeding ground for cancer.
You can also try to have a more alkaline diet than acidic you can get a chart online.
The bottom line is that our planet makes a lot of money making you scared and sick if you were well than someone on the top of the pyramid would not be getting rich. Stay positive, feed your soul, eat natural food vegetables and fruits, workout, cleanse, and give your digestive track a break. Prevention is better than a cure but I personally like naturopathic doctors when I feel the need to bet more balanced. Many illnesses start in the digestive track and are caused by too much toxins in the body from our food and the environment. Your bowels will tell you where you’re at health wise. An overgrowth of candida and fungus is the main cause of cancer. Is your inside clean? Are you overweight and feeling sluggish all the time? What are you putting inside your body? Is it real food or mostly processed laced with sugar and salt. Most breakfast cereals are toxic.

Better food choices
Quinoa
All Vegetables from the ground not in a can
Fruits same as above
Yeast free gluten free breads with multi-grain
Omega three eggs and if you eat meat choose organic meat that is raised free-ranged.
Avoid Dairy, Cheese, White Sugar, and Table Salt and Pop

There are resources of better food choices online and at a book store if you need more guidance with staying healthy. In the meantime drop your weapons and put away your Pink Ribbons and Posters if you want to see a cure for cancer.







Stop HURTING, Start HEALING (Suzane Northrop in Healing the Loss of Loved Ones)



  To learn more and to register, visit 




Thursday, October 4, 2012

Charity and Giving Back




How many of you have ever found yourself in need and despair at one time or another? You might have asked for assistance in form of prayer, money, shelter, food, and an ear to listen, any act of kindness.
Giving back does not always take the form of donations and financial support. It sometimes is easier to give money without ever having to face the individual that needs the help on the other end. There is no actual connection to the cause in that way. True giving comes from the heart and can take the shape of a smile, your skills, a prayer, and emotional support.

How many times have I found myself in desperate need for shelter, food, emotional support? More than once I must admit. I have to say that I feel so fortunate to live in Canada where assistance is easy and very generous. We sometimes even give to that not in actual need but who feel they don’t really want to go out and work for a living. Even though our welfare system is not perfect it still exists and appreciated by those who urgently need the assistance for a limited time and not as a lifestyle.

If we feel a need to judge others and as to how they got where they have in the first place than we limit ourselves in our own evolution. No one chooses dysfunction and pain. It is always a result of a pattern in childhood and a program that is often repeated until we can become more conscious and not need to suffer any more pain. Not too long ago I found myself on a train heading back to Toronto from the Maritimes completely broke when  woman and her daughter fed me, laughed with me, and gave me so much joy and hope. When my parents first immigrated to Canada we were poor to the point of not having heat in our Montreal apartment. It took my family years to change their social status but we always had enough to eat.
In my own lifetime I have used the welfare system, unemployment, a woman’s shelter, the Goodwill, soup kitchens, people’s couches. I have slept in my car, tents, and shacks for a lack of a better word. I have felt hungry, lonely, and scared many times. How I got there is irrelevant but each drama and painful experience led me to a window of great opportunity for enlighten and transformation. When you face deep loss of any kind than you start becoming fearless and life becomes your playground into creating a new reality. Eventually you know that nothing can ever kill you not even death itself. With that realization fear of the unknown is dissolved.

How do you give? We all know the stories about donations to charities that never make it to the ones in need,the bag of rice that never made it to Africa but instead filled the pockets of the greedy. If you give out of the need to blow your own horn and to let others know how generous you are a means to an end and creating publicity of yourself than your hands and heart are empty. I can tell you that many times I have worked in very luxurious environments only to find myself being exploited by the rich and abused emotionally as well. If you’re wealthy and you enter an establishment with the attitude that you are entitled by design and you bring an attitude of toxicity you will leave scars behind long after you are gone and no amount of donations on your part will ever be enjoyed. You build a school in South Africa it makes you feel important and when your back home you abuse the waitress at your local coffee shop with your arrogance? The truth is that everything that you do in life is left behind like a finger print into the matrix of the Universe. Who you are in truth will always be revealed and there is no place to hide. Giving in a state of hypocrisy is like being rich financially but poor in spirit.

Last year I was in a grocery store in Toronto. The lady in front of me was a senior citizen. She had bought 200.00 dollars of groceries and had no money to pay for it. Lucky for her the woman in front of her paid her bill and she disappeared. My friend Ty who is now deceased gave a gay couple fifty thousand dollars of her saving to open a restaurant. When the couple died of HIV they couldn’t return her gift her life savings and this left her in a state of poverty in her old age. Ty was a true giver and she gave all the time. I met her when I was a server in a Mexican restaurant and she use to buy me clothes for work, books from her childhood, and a number of gifts and the light of her stories and presence. It was also a woman named Helen who helped me leave my abusive ex-husband. Helen was also a self-less person. She gave her 400.00 dollar winter jacket to a homeless person and went home with a turtle neck on in order to help what we would call a bum out.

If you have never experienced poverty and loss of any kind in your life but I am sure most of you who are ready this have, will not know that we need to support each other and that sometimes going to the welfare office is a hard process for anyone in desperate need. My family who live in Spain are now faced with the difficulties of a system that created massive hunger for more than half of the citizens. Garbage dumpsters are being locked up so that people do not spread illness through eating garbage. This can happen to any country. We have seen what natural disasters can do to a place and create massive destruction that takes years to resolve. No one is immured to poverty or a natural disaster, death, or limitation through illness or divorce.
We are all connected to each other in the realm of spirit and to judge others on their state of being or lack diminishes your own evolution. If you cannot give now you will not be giving when you’re rich either. Giving is not a financial sate. It is more a state of consciousness and love and an ability to feel empathy for the suffering of others. No amount of money can give you that. Be grateful for the food and shelter that you enjoy now because it may change form tomorrow. Nothing in this world is ever lasting. We have to face our own dissolution and death at one point or another. When you find yourself in lack surrender to it and know that your soul will never be destroyed.

I challenge all of you today no matter how bad life looks right now to go out and make someone anyone a stranger feel good, smile, buy them a coffee today or a tea. Give your skill away for free, call a friend and tell them you love them. Empty out your closet as winter is here soon and people will need your winter clothes if they are poor. Is there a senior you know who wants you to read to them? soup kitchen that needs your help? There are millions of opportunities to give every day of your life and gratitude for what you have now is a way to create a richness in your life because abundance is who we are.

I would like to thank everyone this week that have helped me help my friend Juno and her daughter Kaya from suffering homelessness, by giving them donations, love, and kindness. Your prayers have been heard and your generosity will never be forgotten. Please remember that Massage Planet News also needs your donations to bring more light and consciousness into the planet. I appreciate your ongoing support your money helps me with production costs and give to people in need. Thank you in advance.



People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway. 
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

Poem by Mother Teresa

~

Poema de la madre Teresa

La gente a menudo esirracional, ilógica y egoísta;
Perdónalos de todosmodos.
Si eresamable, la gentetepuedeacusar de egoísta, y decirqueocultassentimientos;
Séamable de todosmodos.
Si tieneséxito, teganarásfalsos amigos y algunosverdaderosenemigos;
Ten éxito de todosmodos.
Si ereshonesto y franco, la gentepuedeengañarte;
Se honesto y franco de todosmodos.
Lo quetellevaañosconstruir, alguienpodríadestruirlo en unanoche;
Constrúyelo de todosmodos.
Si encuentrasserenidad y felicidad, podríasdespertarcelos;
Séfeliz de todosmodos.
El bienquehagas hoy, la genteposiblemente lo olvidarámañana;
Haz el bien de todosmodos.
Da al mundo lo mejorquetienes, y puedequenunca sea suficiente;
Da al mundo lo mejorquetienes de todosmodos.
Lo ves, en el análisis final, es entre tú y tu Dios;
Nuncafue entre tú y ellos de todosmodos.

Madre Teresa