Connie Kishbaugh, Awakening Coach

08/13/2023

Sending Loving Birthday wishes to Heike Becker!

04/18/2020

You Are Needed Now!

You hear it, don’t you? You may not know or recognize its source. You may recognize it as something that has been in the background for some time, very quiet at first, and then, growing ever more distinct and clear and present. It is that which you have been trying to ignore in the work of the day, in the bustle of children, the caring of family, the devotion to job. It loves you so much that it will not go away. It will not be ignored. It will make itself known. The source is you.
It is that still, small voice in every woman, calling on you to give up your act. Surrender and become who you were born to be. Become the brilliance that is shining in that glowing corner of your very being. You are more than you have taken yourself to be. You are more whole, more beautiful, more wise than you have allowed yourself to be.
And you are needed now more than ever. Your strength and serenity is needed to calm the anxiety that is swirling around us. Your wisdom is needed to cut through the extraneous to the real. Your brilliance is needed to be creative and find new solutions to lack of goods and ways to manage sheltering in place. You are the light in the shadows.
The Circle is grateful you have taken your seat here.

Feminine Gifts:
Cynthia Schroll, who leads Journey Dance Gatherings in times of the possibility of gathering, has been sharing gifts of Music for the Soul. If you are interested to receive these offerings, please contact Cynthia at sraces@icloud.com.

Poetry:

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart,
until it becomes a wing,

a torch, a promise.

I choose to risk my significance;

to live so that which came to me as seed

goes to the next as blossom,

and that which came to me as blossom

goes on as fruit.

~ Donna Markova

05/22/2019

Listen To Your Body....

One often hears the term embodiment, but what does that mean to you? To me, it means getting out of my mind, dropping the story, and paying attention to my body. Our bodies are amazing messengers, if only we listen. What happens in your body when you are feeling lonely? Sad? Angry? Happy? Bored? Loved?
Being aware of our bodily responses to our emotions is a tremendous aid and friend whispering in our ear, “Something is just not right”, or, “Something wonderful is going on”.
It is to our benefit to ‘listen’ to our body, so that when we do have feelings, experiences, or thoughts that we would rather not experience, paying close attention to what the body is experiencing can assist you in breaking the hold of the experience or emotion that is unwanted. Instead of resisting the emotion and the sensation occurring in the body, pay close attention to it. Allow the tension in the chest or abdomen to be, just as it is, and focus the breath and attention on it. Then, with each in breath allow the sensation to expand more fully in your body. With each out breath, allow the sensation to flow easily away. Continue in this way until the sensation is no longer present.
In this way, without having a story or solution or idea about the feeling, experience or thought, it becomes completely experienced as a bodily sensation and allowed to flow through and away, instead of getting stuck in our head as another proof of just how our boss, family, spouse, lover, children, the world is out to get you.

04/09/2019

“Oh, what a day. Glorious!” That is the opening line of one of my very favorite songs, “Glorious” by MaMuse. And today was a glorious day. My garden has been rototiller and old vegetation raked out. This afternoon I received a load of mushroom soil to enrich the garden soil. Sweet shoots of green are appearing throughout my yard……Glorious! I love this time of year, the way the streams through the still naked tree branches, the way the ground softens, the scent that the air carries now, and beautifully, finally, birdsong.

I feel my spirit being enlivened and I am opening to shed any heaviness and darkness that may have accumulated through the dark winter months. These months that have been made dark not only by winter, but by ‘ man’s inhumanity to man’.

I am inquiring where I can shine light into the world. Shining light doesn’t require anything more than the answer to the inquiry and the intention. We don’t have to change, or become, or add anything. It simply takes the intention to be light in the world. And when we commit to that intention……opportunities to be light appear everywhere.

Come explore your Light this Thursday, April 11 at 6 PM (Time change for this week only) at Mrida Seva Yoga Studio, 1145-47 Freas Avenue, Berwick, PA.

FEMININE WISDOM:
Oh what a day! Glorious!
Gather ‘round
There's nothing better
Than a friend
Oh what a day! Glorious!
The smell of rain
Has hitched a ride
Upon the wind
I've got good friends
To the left of me
And good friends
To my right
Got the open sky above me
And the earth beneath my feet
Got a feeling in my heart
That's singin'
All in life is sweet
Oh what a day!
MaMuse

03/13/2019

No matter how ‘woke’ we think we are; no matter how aware; no matter how much spiritual practice we do, we’re all still human. We all still have our self doubts, our soft spots, our need to be loved. We can be immediately spiraled into our childhood wounds, our primary wounds, by a word or an attitude from another.

It is our practice in that moment to find our better self. It is our practice in that moment to not give in to the ego. It is our practice in that moment to recognize that it is our little self that is carrying and creating this pain and reaction. This flashback to our original traumas may even come from prebirth wounding, and there is a tendency, especially in our culture of psychology, to blame our faults, our lacks, our inability to love or be loved, on these wounds.

That attitude denies the existence of free will. Because we can, in every moment, snap back into our True Self. Snap back into that which we were meant to be; snap back into that which is always waiting for us. Snap back into our Heart, into the Infinite, into Love.

With enough practice, this can be done on the breath. There is nothing wrong with the fact that we get snapped back into our infancy, our childhood, our teenage years. There is nothing wrong with that. It is staying there, cutting ourselves off from Source, denying the Love that lives within us and in which we are held in every single moment that is the root of our pain.

It takes practice. It takes practice, practice, practice, to be able to receive that snapping back, then breathe, breathe again, and breathe again, and come back to Source. That is always waiting for us, however you choose to define it…..God, Goddess, Divine Mother, Spiritual Sister….it is Love, and it is always, always present.

FEMININE PRACTICE:
A beautiful feminine practice that has been shared many times before and was created by Chameli Ardagh, the founder of Awakening Women Institute, is Feel, Kiss, Flow. Anytime you feel yourself being pulled out of presence and into reacting to the situation before you instead of responding with an open heart, Feel that emotion that is being elicited. What does it feel like? Where does it reside in the body? What is the bodily sensation that is there? Give that sensation space. Allow it to be there. Then just touch it with the breath, like a Kiss, breathing into it. And on the out breath allow it to Flow. Continue to do this Feel, Kiss. Flow until the sensation has passed and you arrive again resting in Source.

Resting in Source doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means our doing comes from a place of deep awareness that we are acting from something far greater than ourselves.

03/13/2019

02/12/2019

Orenda is one of 13 Clan Mothers of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas. She is the symbol of the spiritual essence that contains the Eternal Flame of Love. She houses the guiding light and inner voice that teaches us and guides us on the journey to our potential for our greatest capacity to give and receive love.

She is the Loving Truth found in all living things, and teaches us wisdom and how to live as Love.

Our many roles as women must include the capacity to be a self loving woman. We often put that aspect of our Self away as we go through the daily litany of things to be done. Or we think we've moved beyond that phase of our life. Or we hold a belief that practicing self love is selfish.

The path to spiritual growth and this physical life are all the same. It is all sacred. All activities are sacred.... walking, talking, eating, working; playing with our children, with our friends, with our partners or spouses; sitting in nature, doing the laundry....it is all sacred; it is all Love.

When we access the way to find Love as nourishment in it all, our seeking for something outside ourselves disappears and we are left with the knowledge that seeking happiness is simply another addiction. This knowledge brings us back to balance, back to Love, back to wholeness.

Join us this Thursday, February 14, at 6:30 PM for Women's Temple Gathering and explore what love means to you; how you give love; how you receive love.

Our Temple Home is Mrida Seva Yoga Studio, 1145-47 Freas Avenue, Berwick. Doors open at 6 PM, and donations are welcome.

Women's Temple Gathering is open to women ages 18 to Infinity. There are no prerequisites except the longing you hold in your heart.

01/07/2019

Welcome to 2019! It’s that time of year when we begin to make resolutions. I’m not much of a resolution kind of person. As life is fluid, flowing from one moment to the next, to resolve for it or one’s self to be one way and one way only, is counter intuitive. Instead of a resolution this year, I am making intentions. My primary Intention throughout this year is to learn to receive.

It seems that women in particular have a difficult time receiving. If we are given thanks for something that we have done, we say, “Oh, it was nothing”. We point out the mistakes or minimize the act. If we are appreciated for our wisdom or our intelligence or our creativity, our looks, our warmth, or whatever it may be, we find some way to diminish the gift that has been attempted to be given to us. Or we deflect it back on the giver. So my intention is to learn to receive.

I have learned and am still learning to receive by the best teacher, my teacher, mentor and friend, Chameli Ardagh, creator of Awakening Women. She teaches that when someone acknowledges something that you do, something that you are, in some way that you shine, to simply say, “Deeply received”.

Deeply received. You don’t even need to say thank you. Deeply received, an acknowledgment that you have heard it, that you welcome it, and that you receive the blessing that has been given to you by another. Deeply received.

This is my intention to practice throughout this year.

I wish you simply the best of all that can possibly come to you throughout this New Year. May it be filled with love, and may your intentions be fulfilled.

Join us at our Temple Women’s Gathering this Thursday, January 10, 2019, and Receive. Receive acknowledgement, appreciation, compassion, gratitude, sisterhood, understanding and unconditional love.

We meet at Mrida Seva Yoga Studio, 1145-57 Freas Avenue, Berwick. Temple doors open at 6 PM and Temple begins at 6:30. If you have any questions or require more information, please text me at 916-761-1557, and I will respond as quickly as possible. I look forward to showering you with all of the above.
Much love,
Connie
Feminine Happenings:
Journey Dance
Join Cynthia Schroll as she guides us through the joy of music and movement to find your wings and freely soar.
Sunday, January 20, 2 PM Please arrive early
Crossfit Hereafter, across from Columbia Mall

Feminine Wisdom:

Being self-luminous
You cause everything to shine;
Delighting in your form
You fill the universe with delight;
Rocking with your own bliss
You make the whole world dance with joy.
~ Utpaladeva

12/12/2018

The Greatest Gift
I just got off the phone with a dear friend. She has been grieving because her twin sister has refused to speak to her for 6 months. She was deeply in pain and trying to logically talk herself out of it, and to avoid the painful experience.

For a woman's heart to come back to Love, whatever emotion is before us must be experienced fully, and the story dropped. Our feelings, our emotions, are in constant flux, flowing like a river. Sometimes we attempt to stop that flow by placing the rock of logic in the river. If we do that enough times, we create rapids, rough water. If we continue to do it often enough the river of our feelings become blocked, and we can become cold and uncaring, the flow of our love blocked as well.

We give our greatest gift when we give it from love, from our longing to serve, from a compassionate heart.. When we are blocked in this by the story of who said what to whom and when, we cannot give our gift. Nor can we receive the gift of love from another in that state.

During this Christmas Season, or Hanukkah, or Kwanza or however you celebrate this glorious time of the year, give yourself the gift of Love flowing freely from you and to you.

Please join me at Temple Gathering this Thursday, December 13 at 6:30 PM at Mrida Seva Yoga Studio, 1145/47 Freas Ave., Berwick. This will be our Christmas Party Temple. There will be yummies. Let's celebrate each other by bringing as a gift a small token of your life and love to be exchanged. And to those of you who can't be with us physically for our Temple celebration, I wish you all the joy, blessings and love this Season can bring.
Much love,
Connie

Copyright © 2018 Connie Kishbaugh, Coach, All rights reserved.

12/03/2018

You were born to this..... -

11/09/2018

Celebrate YOU!!

How often in your life do you notice yourself discounting your accomplishments? Do you wait for someone to congratulate you on a win, an achievement? Or do you.....loudly and proudly....speak of those accomplishments?
I'm sure each of us has, at least once in the past, been socialized against and chastised for 'tooting our own horn'. What an odd expression of derision. Just whose horn should we be tooting, if not our own?
If you are a wife, mother, employee, employer, or any other manifestation or combination of manifestations of a woman, you have felt proud, on another's behalf, and tooted the horn for your husband's, children's, employer's or employees' accomplishments.
You should feel proud of your accomplishments, as well. You deserve to share triumphs with friends, families, even strangers. Each of you is a beautiful, powerful, creative, loving, compassionate woman, and the world deserves to know that about you.
So......we are going to share with each other one thing we are proud of. It could be a meal cooked, an achievement at work, a scientific breakthrough, a relationship solution, a prize won.....it can be anything that you haven't spoken because you were hesitant to seem prideful.
It's time to stop being small about our own accomplishments. Let's share with each other, with your family and/or friends, just now, just one thing of which you're proud.
I'll go first.....I won a blue ribbon at the Bloomsburg Fair for one of my paintings.
Whew!!!! That was hard; my heart is beating so rapidly, and I'm blushing. But I did it.
At last night's Temple Gathering, we dove deep into the inquiries of "What have you done in life to be celebrated?", "How do you want to be remembered?", and then distilling that all down into the 5 Essential Truths of You.

I look forward to Celebrating YOU!

Much love,
Connie

Feminine Wisdom:
"I make it a practice to offer both insecurity and pride on the altar." Chameli

Feminine Happenings:
Cynthia Schroll will lead a "We Are One" Journey Dance, Sunday, November 18, at 1 PM at CrossFit Hereafter, 243 Columbia Mall Drive, Bloomsburg.

10/08/2018

The Benefits of a Gratitude Practice -

08/21/2018

Being Present

I just completed a session with one of my clients, a very busy doctor. Her primary concern and purpose for getting coaching is to find a way in her life to create more space to be with her husband and children.

She comes home from work exhausted and her children, after not having seen her since 8 AM, naturally want to spend time with her. She finds herself too tired to interact with them as she’d like.

I’m familiar with this Mother’s Dilemma. How do we find the energy to be with energetic young children, or emotionally sensitive teenagers, when we ourselves struggle sometimes to find the energy just to get through the day.

How do you forge a deep and meaningful relationship when you see your children for only short periods of time? The answer of course is Presence. For the time that you are with them, you are with them. The secret is Presence, tapping into your innate, bountiful Mother’s Heart.

The piece of wisdom that guides us to this possibility, is the deep knowledge that if you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of any one else, not even those most loved by you. Taking care of yourself doesn’t mean a Spa Day completely removed, although that is wonderful.

Taking care of yourself means that you are communicating with and heeding your Divine Wisdom. It means that you find your Tribe. It means that you have the support of women just like you. It means giving up the habits and stories that keep you prisoner in your own life. It means caring for your spiritual well being.

Join us to explore this and much more at a Temple Gathering this Thursday, August 21 at 6:30 PM.
We meet at Mrida Seva Yoga Studio, 1145/47 Freas Avenue, Berwick. Doors open at 6 PM. Donations are welcomed.

Feminine Practice: Coming Into the Moment

Sit quietly and comfortably with eyes closed and bring your attention to your breath. Follow your breath as it moves into and out of your body. Notice how the abdomen expands on the in breath and falls back on the exhale. Begin to count the length of the inbreath, beginning with four counts. Pause at the top of the breath, and then exhale for the same number of counts. Breathe in this way for 10 breaths. Gradually increase the length of the inbreaths and exhales to 5 and then to 6, for 10 breaths each increase.

Open your eyes and see what is here.
Now go be with the ones you love.

Feminine Wisdom:

Lead me from dreaming to waking.
Lead me from opacity to clarity.
Lead me from the complicated to the simple.
Lead me from the obscure to the obvious.
Lead me from intention to attention.
Lead me from what I'm told I am to what I see I am.
Lead me from confrontation to wide openness.
Lead me to the place I never left,
Where there is peace, and peace
~ The Upanishads

08/09/2018

I AM HERE

I enjoy listening to the interviews conducted by Terri Gross on her NPR show, Fresh Air. I always learn something new, or take away something to consider in a new way. During the interview I was listening to today, “I am here”, the phrase spoken by Abraham in the Old Testament came up.

I am here. I. Am. Here. What a powerful declaration of presence. I am here, in this moment.

So simple, because really, where else can one be? You can’t be in the past; that is gone. You can’t be in the future; that has not yet come.

Yet, we spend so much of our lives responding to what is before us with old habitual ways of being in the world. Or, we are, conversely, responding to what we imagine will happen in the future, absolutely sure that we know what the future will bring. We don’t.

I am here. This means experiencing this moment, these sights, these sounds, these sensations, just and only now.

I am here. What a beautiful gift to give your loved ones and friends. I encourage you to practice this in every conversation you have this week. Whenever you begin a conversation at home, at work, any conversation at all, consciously repeat the words to yourself, “I am here”. Notice the quality of the conversation from this vantage point. What is different from the habitual way of being in conversation, that way we have of being so busy planning what we are going to say that we don’t hear what is being spoken. Notice if you experience a deeper connection to the person with whom you are speaking from this place of I. am. here.