I am often asked this question: When I try to meditate, I fall asleep. What does it mean? The deep and enlightened answer to that question is: it means you are tired ; )

It’s the same thing when you finally make space for your creative work. You carve out a couple of hours or a few days out of your routine for it, and you get sick or you are too tired to focus or tap into your creativity. It means your body needs rest, attention, and support.

We are so conditioned to be busy, to fill up our days with tasks that often the first time we have a chance to stop and realize how tired we really are is when we hit the pillow at night. Chances are we weren’t very creative that day because soul-fuelled creativity requires us to be present to our being, to pause long enough to hear or feel the communication from our soul.

When I left my teaching job at the university for focusing on my passion full-time and become self-employed, I found it very challenging to go from...

A few days ago, I had coffee with a friend, the best kind of friend, the kind that asks you huge questions like “What are you most afraid of these days Anne?” I went into myself to feel this question, and I stared at him for a little while. Then, from this ache in my chest, I said: “I am afraid of what my anger can do.” His question came toward the end of our time together, so after he left, I sat there by myself in a hot mess of emotions (Thanks a lot Nick ; ) but really, thank you ) and this is what I wrote...

I remember rage, in Grade 10. I was in Quebec city with my basketball team playing a tournament game against an all-girl private school team, and they were vicious. When the refs weren’t looking, they’d trip us on purpose and throw elbows in the rib cage any chance they had. None of the coaches were seeing what was happening, and I remember just steaming inside. I’d never experienced anything like that. Then, in the last...

I am raw, swirling inside, ungrounded. As I watched my 10-year-old daughter holding back tears as she walks out of the car and heading into school this morning, my insides are crumbling. She feels trapped, unable to find an exit from the overwhelming fear that has taken over her normally bright and fierce self these past few weeks. She can’t find her way through this heaviness, she feels not in control of herself, and it splits my heart open.

Is it pre-puberty, a new teacher and new classmates, the car accident she was in last winter, a sudden and new awareness of mortality, her older brother going through his own changes, me travelling, the recent encounter with a verbally violent neighbour, or is it a combination of all these things coming together in a perfect storm… whatever it is, it is bringing her to the edge of her own awareness of safety in her body, and of her sense of power in this world.

In this intensity, I feel my own shakiness, which dissimulates an anger...

If you are anything like me and growing up you adopted "pleasing" as a way of being seen and validated by your environment, then pleasing has kept you safe for a long, long time. Pleasing has built walls so you could protect yourself emotionally, spiritually and perhaps even physically, and survive your world. And maybe you have embarked on a journey of letting go of pleasing others in this way that is not healthy for you, and you know that others’ happiness and comfort is not your job nor your responsibility anymore. Maybe you have realized that what you really want is to know yourself beyond this pattern and you want to be able to love in a different way, with healthy boundaries. I get you.

Then you might come to a point where you ponder this question:  who was I before I began to please? Who was the little boy or the little girl before they fragmented into multiple “selves” to accommodate, to keep the peace, to manage others’ emotions? And when you...

Oh, this is a juicy topic. It is of the hour. I am so fascinated by our desire as human beings to put others on a pedestal, to give our power away in order to feel some peace, some respite from our suffering, some lasting joy.

I did it. Beginning with my mother, for a long long time, then with “mother figures" like Sai Maa, and Anita, then with “father figures” like Wayne and with priests in the Catholic church growing up. I did it with men. Oh did I ever betray myself in my teens and my twenties, when I crossed the boundary line between “I want to share love with you” and “this is not ok but I can't remember where to find my voice”. I even did it with Paul to some extent. It is hard-wired in me, conditioned deep in my cells, to feel like another has my answers, another holds my worth, the key to my success, to my ultimate happiness.

Sometimes these happenings have opened up doors within myself and gave me access to more profound dimensions...

Excitement is a fire emotion, a take action emotion. So is anxiety. At the emotional level, they are both arousal feelings. At the spiritual level, they are both the element of fire. Except that with anxiety, instead of feeling inspired, we are stopped dead in our tracks, we back away, our fire remains unfulfilled.

One week before I was to lead my very first retreat, 10 years ago, I was really nervous. And I was frustrated with myself because up to that point I had been really excited about finally making this dream of mine a reality. But it didn’t feel so good now, I even thought of canceling the program. 

At the time I was working closely with Laura Kealoha, a Kahuna from Kauai, so I called her for some advice. She said: “Have you considered that this feeling you are having might actually be excitement, but it just feels different? Focus your anxiousness into a concrete action toward your goal, just as you would with your enthusiasm. Use that nervous feeling and...

We are human “beings,” but many of us rarely get to “be” in the run of a day. Simply being and feeling what is present in the moment is one of the greatest things we can do to find a sense of peace and joy and to be the best parent we can be. Just because we are raising children doesn't mean that we can’t also be on our personal growth path. Personally, my spiritual journey and self-work accelerated when I became a mother. I eventually realized that my children are my greatest teachers.

Our children are our mirrors: clear reflections of their external world, uncompromisingly in their “being-ness” because social conditioning has not altered their connection to source. They show us who we are whether we like it or not. They amplify the parts we know, the parts we don't, the parts we love, and the parts we don’t.

How we react is the key.

I’ll always remember looking into the eyes of my newborn and seeing a love I had never seen...

 Destiny or Free will?

We come to earth to reach and manifest our highest potential. Along the way, we find the tools, the gifts, the circumstances, and the people we need to accomplish this.

 But is it mostly destined or do we have free will? Is it all already written, set in stone, or do I get a say in the matter? Are there really ancient Akashic records, palm leaves in a cave somewhere in India where my past, present, and future is written out, and all I have to do is watch my life unfold? Or are we master “manifestors,” great creators with the power to write our own story? Or is it a little bit of both?

When I was a small child, I don’t remember having to consciously do anything to live the life I was meant to live. Meaningful events and inspiration would appear as out of nowhere and I’d confidently take a step toward my joy. Awe seemed to be guiding me, propelling me from one moment to the other, transporting me to explore my innate curiosity....

Today is September 28^th. It’s the full moon tonight. The first full moon since Wayne Dyer passed on August 30^th.

Yesterday was the Super Blood Moon Eclipse. It is said that between 2009 and 2015, the Mayan Calendar predicted a Great Window of opportunity, when humankind would have the chance to fully step into our destiny as loving and compassionate creators.

Yesterday was also the day we (Autopoetic Ideas) brought Rachel Parent to Halifax. Rachel is a 16-year-old youth advocate and the founder of Kids Right To Know, an organization that is asking for the labelling of food that contains GMOs, here in Canada. Rachel’s message is simple: just label it so we can make informed decisions. She was presenting in front of political candidates, as well as concerned individuals, in the hopes of getting a law passed that would require all Canadian GMO foods to be labelled.

I love what Rachel is doing. I love her spirit, her fearlessness, and her commitment. She is only 16 years...