From the LifeQuake Desk

March 25 2018

The Best Time to Make a Career Change

Dr. Toni Blog, Dr. Toni's Five Minute Tips, From the LifeQuake Desk career change, dream interpretation, lifequake, mercury retrograde, midlife crisis, sex and love addiction, the lifequake method 0

Career Changes When You’re in Transition

As a career coach and futurist, people often come to me when they are confused about what kind of career move they should make and when to make it. They often want a simple, quick, one size fits all answer. As the saying goes, “Hope springs eternal”. A pragmatist would always suggest you to not leave a job until you have another one lined up. An idealist would say, trust and leap. It will get you out of your rut. An optimist might say, write your resume and let it inspire you to draw from your experience to make your next career move.

Although I was a psychotherapist for several years before I became a change management consultant, I have always had the philosophy as someone who was trained in the Jungian tradition, that the answer to the what and when of career change is non-linear. What it does require if you want to do it before you are fired for performing poorly on the job is being present. Begin with paying close attention to synchronicities. When we are keenly aware of the world around us and our feeling state as it interacts with our world, patterns and themes will show up. You might hear the same word or words repeatedly. You might meet a new person or persons that are very out of the ordinary or eccentric even. Further, your dreams may have messages to guide your process.

When I was just finishing graduate school, my professors at Chapman University warned us not to go into private practice. We were in a big economic recession and the smart move was to work at a clinic or addiction treatment facility or go into teaching. After all, those who can’t do, teach, right? 🙂 I however, did go into private practice as an intern under a psychologist who specialized in sex and love addiction and my practice grew fast. Not because I specialized in those kind of addictions, because I didn’t. My specialty from the beginning was transition – helping people through difficult uncertain cycles like divorce or career change. I wasn’t much interested in chronic conditions like anxiety and depression; although they are lucrative, because people rarely get better who have been depressed for many years, so they stay with you. This did not interest me. I liked working with addictions that were brought on by being in the tunnel and perhaps stuck in the birth canal.

When I discovered astrology, a whole new world opened up for me. I could see latent talents in a person’s horoscope that they might never have thought they could make money doing. I could also help them with timing. And even Daniel Pink, a very rational sort of journalist has written about timing. We all know that doing things at the right time can make all the difference.

During a Mercury Retrograde, for example, which we are in now until April 20, the time is best spent on turning within and discovering what is your calling. People often call me during a retrograde without knowing why. It is not however the best time to make any firm commitments you cannot get out of. Now this is general to everyone. More nuanced is the best time for you specifically to make a move once you know what direction you want to start in. This is where observing the interaction between your electromagnetic field and the planets in the galaxy comes in through drawing an astrological blueprint. Einstein is quoted as saying that our destiny is tied to this mathematical universe we live in. People who are not familiar with astrology confuse it with tarot card reading because they don’t know how mathematical the mantic sciences of astrology and numerology are.

Where the art comes in, is in the interpretation. If you think about it, this applies to medicine as well. A doctor is given a list of symptoms by his/her patient and three doctors might give three interpretations which is what can happen when you get a second and third opinion. So, if doctors are “guestamating” based on their training, the same is true for career coaching. I listen to my client… deeply. I listen to more than the words. I listen to their voice inflection, their body language, and something that just comes from 30 years of experience and my gut.

I love helping people find what they are here to do next. For a millennial, it may be their first career, for someone in mid life, it may be drawing on the experience they already have to do something slightly different, and for Act 3 individuals, it may be a radical divergence they can now economically support, a kind ofcocooning dream they’ve had for years and can finally allow to become a butterfly and take flight.

So to answer the thesis for this article, there is no best time to make a career change – not even in a recession or if you have a physical condition or if you have very little money. The best time is uniquely quixotic for everyone.

Dr. Toni Galardi has been a career and transitions coach for 30 years and wrote The LifeQuake Phenomenon – a 7 stage model for helping people be resilient while discovering their passionate purpose. She can be reached at 310- 890-6832. She works by phone, Skype and FaceTime with people all over the world.

March 22 2018

“The Italian St Patrick’s Day”

Dr. Toni From the LifeQuake Desk 0

St. Joseph’s Day is celebrated all over the world.

In Sicily, participants usually wear red and build what is known as “St. Joseph’s Table.” This table is often decorated with flowers and candles, and people place wine and foods on it that are considered lucky. Some of these lucky foods include fava beans, lemons, and foods that contain sawdust. All of these foods have symbolic meanings. Fava beans were the only things that survived a drought during the Middle Ages in Italy – which is why it is considered lucky. Breadcrumbs are worked into the recipes of the dishes because St. Joseph was a carpenter and the breadcrumbs represent sawdust. Some people place fish and seafood on the altar as well. However, what is not placed on St. Joseph’s Table is any dish which contains meat. That’s because this holiday occurs during Lent.

In Sicily, it is also believed that if a woman manages to sneak a lemon off of St. Joseph’s Table on this day, then she have better luck finding a husband. It is also customary for people to wear red on this day and to indulge themselves with doughnuts and crème puffs. In Italy, Spain and Portugal, St. Joseph’s Day is Father’s Day.

Since New Orleans, Louisiana in the United States was a major port of entry for Sicilian immigrants during the late 1800s and has a large Sicilian population, this holiday is celebrated by the whole city. On St. Joseph’s Day. St. Joseph’s Tables are built both for the public and by private individuals. These altars are then filled with a variety of different food – just like the celebrations in Sicily – however, these foods usually have somewhat of a Cajun twist to them. Afterward, all of the food is then usually donated to the poor. New Orleans also has a variety of parades and marching bands performing on the streets during this day.

In Switzerland, it is a public holiday in some of the cantons. The cantons which observe this day include Valais, Schwyz, Uri, Ticino, and Nidwalden. On these days, banks and schools are usually closed but many businesses may still be open. While this holiday was traditionally popular in Switzerland, it has begun to lose much of that popularity over the last several years and fewer people are observing it in this country.

St. Joseph’s Day is also traditionally celebrated in many other American communities, particularly those who have large Italian populations. This includes cities such as New York, Syracuse, Buffalo, Jersey City, Chicago, Gloucester, Providence, Kansas City and St. Louis. In Providence, some people will wear red clothing on this day – much in the same way that people will wear green on St. Patrick’s Day.

March 9 2018

A tidbit of Chapter One of LifeQuake

Dr. Toni From the LifeQuake Desk career boredom, change management, change mastery, chaos, hero's journey, life transition 0

CHAPTER 1

The Heat Wave: Subtle Tremors

We are so accustomed to disguising ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves. ~

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, 1613-1680

In the opening chapter the reader is shown how the sociological, psychological, and environmental crises occurring on a grand scale are in fact catalysts, prompting each of us to evolve in our own lives. Our collective chaos is fueling a push toward greater personal adaptation to accelerated change.

The concept of a “LifeQuake” is introduced as the result of resisting change — yet also the emergence of a new self accompanied by inevitable birthing pains. In its first- stage subtleties, a LifeQuake often goes unrecognized. Tell-tale signs include boredom, restlessness, and irritability. What is misunderstood, if not totally overlooked, is that these are symptoms of an old life that’s been outgrown. Not surprisingly, this is when resistance to change is strongest. Without recognition of the process, it may be hard to identify that these symptoms signal the dawn of a more authentic life and higher level
of consciousness.

Through a questionnaire that has been given to thousands of people over the years, this chapter helps readers identify which stage of their LifeQuake is operative. Then it reviews the impact of Stage One on lifestyle, workplace, relationships, and health, while providing tangible strategies for mastering change in each of these areas.

How to start building a new ‘faultless’ foundation when the old one starts to crack open is described, accompanied with an explanation of the building elements for that stage.

In Chapter One, the building elements are Keen Observation and Listening. Each chapter contains a toolbox section with practical exercises to assist in transitioning to the next stage. The tool box exercises in Chapter 1 are:

LIGHT, CAMERA, ACTION (a visualization to start the day)
TAKING YOUR EMOTIONAL PULSE (a tool to be used periodically throughout the
day),
DOTMAKING YOUR DESTINY (throughout the day)
MIRROR, MIRROR, ON THE WALL (exercise to be practiced at the end of each day).
As with all heroic journeys, there are distinct tasks that help with developing change mastery. At the end of this chapter and those following, these tasks are shown as bulleted checkpoints summarizing the first leg of the LifeQuake journey. These are meant to be guide posts not judgmental criteria for how well you are doing.

March 7 2018

How to Dance Soulfully With Mercury As He Dances Backwards

Dr. Toni From the LifeQuake Desk Soul Centered Astrology, stress management, tips for mercury retrograde 0

As we move closer to the time of Jupiter beginning its retrograde in Scorpio and Mercury entering its shadow on the very same day, a subtle gearing down of the winged messenger and the god of all things in abundance begins. We are being called to go within yet again. When Jupiter transits a planet in our chart in its direct motion, we often either experience its blessing of tangible gifts or its curse of arrogance, overextending or overindulging ourselves.

However, when Jupiter is in retrograde motion, it asks us to explore our inner terrain. What part of our soul wants to expand? Further, because Scorpio rules sex, death and transformation, what parts of the ego do we need to release for our own personal resurrection? Perfect timing with Easter on April 1.

The past 2 years I have been called to witness what you might call “medical life quakes”. Nine members of my family have either passed on or are facing grave diagnoses. When I was in the thick of it last week (one sudden death of my 49 year old cousin and my parents who live in different parts of the country being given terminal diagnoses) I started to absorb everyone’s suffering to the extent that I thought I was going over the edge.

After clearing them all with the help of my dear friend and colleague, Dr Jacqueline Chan, I realized today that I am being given the ultimate lesson around my relationship with suffering. When we are unable to provide a container for our own suffering, we cannot be with another’s, so we try to fix them or judge them so we don’t have to feel their pain or our own around their impending loss.

When I was told by my stepmother today that my almost 91 year old father was going to do chemotherapy, I got triggered. I ranted on facebook about the racket that oncologists have going preying on elderly people because medicare will pay for it. I then went for a walk and went into self inquiry. What was at the bottom of my being angry at this doctor and further, what have i not learned that this lesson of family suffering is still here to teach me?

I realized that if you are truly in the state of love, you dont take on your loved ones suffering and suffer. If you hold suffering as a high state of quickening, there is nothing to change.The astrological archetype of Scorpio is exemplified so beautifully through the transformation that takes place inside an oyster when through its encounter with grit and sand, the friction produces a pearl. My sense is that these 12 months of Jupiter in Scorpio ending in late October will bring many issue out of the shadow into the light around sexuality, ( The “Me,too” campaign launched that but there will be more to learn on this subject), our financial structure, and how we manage chaos. Are you on a Phoenix bird journey or like the scorpion, do you stay attached to how things are, holding on,resisting change until it poisons you?

I will talk more about Mercury retrograde as we get closer to it but I invite you to get your computer and other technological devices up to speed now. Make decisions that you can’t put off until mid April when Mercury goes direct, NOW, like before March 7th if possible. On March 8th, Jupiter calls us home to our inner teacher as it also rules higher knowledge and gurus and on the same day, Mercury asks of us also to turn within and work with our shadow selves as it literally enters its shadow before officially going retro.

On the lighter side, use this time to discover what brings you joy… now. Although it is one of my exercises in helping people find their next life calling to look into their lives at where their energy goes up, I invite you to play also with leaning into suffering. Notice what makes you suffer. Is it traffic or your lunch order getting screwed up or someone else’s pain? Here is another possibility: breathe into wherever your body is constricting and do your version of “let go, let God” or if you’re Italian, Che sara’, sara’. That was my agnostic Italian grandmother’s version of surrender. As you soften into the pain or discomfort, it will slowly melt. If you practice this throughout the entire retrograde of Jupiter into mid summer, when it turns direct, I promise full enlightenment! (just kidding, my metaphysical Billy Graham coming-out there). As I let out my full Jupiter before the retro, I will swing out and say, that if you don’t waste your suffering by merely suffering and instead lean in with the light behind you, joy is bound to follow. Why else would we have so many Jewish comedians?

In closing, I invite you to come play with me on the one on one. Of all the things I do professionally, personal coaching is my favorite because of the intimacy and trust that it takes for people to allow themselves the gift of transformation. To all of you who have worked with me and to those who will work with me ( in some undefinable time and/or dimension), I thank you for having given me the opportunity to serve you and support the pearl of a soul that you already are! Let’s all hold for each other, a lovely journey home this month…

In deep gratitude for you,

Dr. Toni

September 28 2015

What I Learned From Vittorio De Sica About Change

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Last night I went to this amazing theatre in San Francisco called The Castro where they were doing a retrospective on Vittorio De Sica’s greatest four films. Twenty years ago, a friend who was an independent filmmaker told me that De Sica had made this amazing film that won the Oscar for best foreign film in 1972 called The Garden of the Finzi-Contini and that if I ever had the opportunity to see it on a big screen to make sure I caught it.

They had digitally remastered it and it truly was a moving experience to watch. To synopsize (for those who have never seen it), this film depicts the lives of Italian Jews in northern Italy contrasting the middle and upper class from 1938-1943. What the film brilliantly demonstrated for me was the price one pays for denial. The Bourgeois middle class father in the film does not want to believe that Mussolini and fascism is as bad as Hitler’s Nazism so he doesn’t get out in time. The upper class think they can bribe the Fascist government and they will never be harmed and you see over time what happens when you live life like a goldfish who doesn’t feel he is being boiled to death because the change in the water temperature happens so slowly. You see in the film their rights being slowly taken away ( first forbidden from schools, then forbidden from having Aryan servants, etc) and how as they keep accommodating the restrictions and make no move to leave their homes, they are eventually taken away to camps.

Although I am not Jewish, my grandfather immigrated his family in the winter of 1933 just as Hitler was beginning to gain power in Germany and the rise of Nazism had begun. My grandparents left a middle class life for a poor working class life in Brooklyn, New York. At the time, my father who was only six hated the cold and urban environment that replaced his southern Italian roots. Little did they know that when the war broke out years later , that my grandmother’s family and their home would be pillaged by the Nazis in Salerno, a key area.

How does one know when it is time to leave behind everything you know to venture into the unknown? Believe it or not, there are signs. As someone who has done it both the easy way and the hard way, I know that observing if Autumn has come to your life is instrumental to preparing for change. So, here is a question to ask about any area of your life that you are pondering whether to change or not: How much is it costing you to stay the same and how much are you benefiting? Are you getting sick a lot or even just noticing chronic, unabating fatigue or drain? Has your income dropped? In one cycle of my life, I was becoming fatigued but it was due to being in a house that had toxic mold in the walls unbeknownst to me. I didn’t want to move because I had a two bedroom house at the beach that was rent controlled. In the end, I got very sick before discovering this mold through the help of an environmental inspector. When I looked back, I remembered having this vague feeling a year before I started to get sick that it was time to make a change but I didn’t want to give up my beach house so I didn’t listen to the whisper. I had to wait until I was forced to make a decision and had to endure the clamoring of living in a motel for two months because everything I owned was contaminated.

Where in your life has Autumn come?

Write and tell me one action step you will take to clear away the dead leaves as they fall one by one? It takes bravery to be in the in between place and trust you will be guided if you let go of the familiar and embrace the barren trees of winter while waiting for Spring to come and as the Italians say it – destino!

April 15 2010

Relapse In the Face of Major Life Change: Prevention Strategies

Dr. Toni From the LifeQuake Desk 0

We live in rapidly changing times. The beginning of this decade and century has brought many sudden, sometimes devastating crises to which we’ve had to respond instantly. Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, the earthquake in Haiti and Wall Street quaking all came, seemingly without warning. And it is predicted that we will continue to see devastating collective happenings, such as climate catastrophes and economic contractions (economists predict until 2011).

On a more personal level, there are also massive LifeQuakes that many of us are experiencing. Given this, it is no wonder that addiction, in all its manifestations, continues to skyrocket. But these seemingly catastrophic events can be a guise for something better. Through the eyes of evolution-oriented psychotherapy, it can be seen as part of a vast evolutionary shift.

Fear has always been an adaptive, evolutionary mechanism for getting our adrenaline pumping. But survival of the fittest no longer indicates who can outrun nature’s predators. Today’s survivors are those who can maintain grace under fire. For the addict, who often comes with a rigid personality structure, learning to adapt to these times of personal and global upheaval without relapsing is the true challenge.

Part of responding to crisis without hysteria is preparation. It is actually possible to intuit the signs that radical change is coming—if people in aboriginal tribes can have this instinctual nature, so can we. In fact, there are documented instances of people who intuited not to get on United flight 93 on 9/11, who sold their home before the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and who got out of the stock market shortly before September 2008.

The key to preparing for change depends on a new belief that change is gain, as opposed to loss. When you choose to change the negative association with change, you are more apt to listen for the signs that a cycle is completing and change is coming, even if you don’t know what that specific change needs to be.

In your childhood, if change always brought crisis or pain, you may have a deep subconscious resistance to major transitions and turn to addiction to cope. The irony is that if you hold onto the belief that change will be negative, it can become a self-fulfilling prophesy. If your coping strategy for adapting to change is to avoid the warning signs by numbing yourself through substances or other distractions, you actually create crisis-driven transition. Even for those who are going to meetings and are not actively using, there are other subtle ways of avoiding dealing with the fear of change. A slew of parking tickets may be a wake-up call that you are over-parked in your life. If ignored, a major accident could be around the corner.

One technique to begin to transform the fear of change is to spend a few minutes every day with your eyes closed. Ask yourself, “Is there some area of my life that has become defunct, no longer functioning for my greater good?” It could be your job responsibilities, the form of exercise you do or even your sex life.

Now focus inward toward your body.

When you think about changing that routine, what feelings surface? Where are those feelings located in your body? Now, take five minutes to simply breathe into it by placing your left hand (this is governed by the side of the brain that elicits our intuitive, creative self) directly over this area. Allow your hand to get warmer. Now send an intention of unconditional love into your hand. Think about all the times you have used your hands to express love toward family members or a pet, and then transfer that same feeling of complete acceptance you have toward others you love to the place in your body where you hold the fear of change. Love the fear as it is by directing energy through your hand as you would if you were reassuring a wounded pet. End this practice by repeating to yourself, “I am safe and secure. Change now brings me gain.”

Allow yourself to either visualize or feel into your body a future life in which this change has brought peace and in which you are thriving. The key is to practice experiencing feeling the inner security of moving through change completely supported emotionally, physically, and financially, so that you can thrive after the change comes. To reprogram your body to do this, repeat this exercise as often as you feel the fear arise—for as long as several weeks—until there is no more negative charge associated with making a life change.

January 10 2010

My Personal LifeQuake Journey

Dr. Toni From the LifeQuake Desk, News crisis, divorce, NDE's, toxic mold 1

I have often been asked to summarize my own personal journey that led to writing The LifeQuake Phenomenon. Although most of it is revealed in the pages of this book, I decided to share just my story here in my blog. I warn you: it is the length of reading three blogs or about 5 pages of a self help book.

The LifeQuake Model was birthed after my third near fatal experience. I say near fatal rather than near death because NDE’s have a particular phenomenology highlighted by traveling through a tunnel and seeing a whitelight and family menbers or spiritual beings.

My near fatal experiences did not take me out of this life and in fact were characterized by long periods IN the tunnel, stuck between cycles of my life.

In the LifeQuake Model there are seven stages. Prior to my first near fatal experience when I was 21 years old, I was working on skid row fresh out of undergraduate school. I had moved to California six months before and finding a job had been difficult. However, having grown up in a white, middle class suburb the exposure to the mean streets of downtown Los Angeles proved to be quite the education I hadn’t received before. At first, I was fascinated by this subculture of people and their actual preference for living on the streets. There were doctors who had become alcoholics along with your usual addicts. But soon, this novelty wore off and I became bored with my job, feeling unchallenged by the work. Boredom is the first stage of a LifeQuake. Around this time I met my soon to be husband and he suggested I leave the job but I was fiercely independent and didn’t want him supporting me so I stayed. And when you don’t change your life at this stage, you enter stage two – the dying of the old life that is often characterized by depression. I started dreading going to work. I had to go to bed at 9 in order to be up at 5 and at work at 6 AM.

And then stage Three hit – the crisis and radical severance from the old cycle. One day, an addict got through reception high on PCP. I didn’t know he was on drugs. I just observed that he was causing a commotion with other patients in the facility and I went over to talk to him. Suddenly, he flipped out and started choking my throat. Everyone was stunned and paralyzed by fear except for one woman. She had been a doctor in Russia and had emigrated but had been forced to work as a phlebotomist in this facility. She was a big woman and began pulling on his arm. PCP infuses one with super human strength, unfortunately, so he threw her in one direction and me up against the wall and then ran out.

I was rushed to the hospital with hand print bruises all over my neck and began a three month course in rehabilitation. During this time, I began having nightmares in which the assault was taking place all over again. I had entered stage four. I was in a void. No job, no clue as to what to do next. My fiancé suggested I get therapy. During the course of my therapy, I started asking the therapist questions about her work and where she went to school. I had mentioned that as a kid my father nicknamed me Dear Abby because my friends would often ask for my advice. She suggested that perhaps I take a course and see if it was for me. I enrolled in graduate school and took one course. I loved it and started full time in the fall. This began Stage Five of my LQ. In stage five, you apprentice at what you discovered as your calling in stage four. Although I went on to be very successful as a psychotherapist and owning a beautiful home with two offices, stage six and seven as I came to know them did not crystallize for me until my next LifeQuake. In the LifeQuake model, stage six is the stage in which you experience life as abundant no matter how it shows up and it is this perception that creates wealth as you would have it. Stage seven is characterized by quantum altruism where the individual experiences that out of helping those they serve they themselves are served. This has a quantum effect and leads eventually to the entire planet having this consciousness of oneness.

My second LifeQuake began four years later when once again the cycle of my life was completing and I was afraid of making the change. I started feeling bored and unchallenged once again and I tried to quell the boredom with weekly shopping trips to South Coast Plaza and multiple glasses of wine every night after working all day with my patients. When this didn’t work, I started to feel like a zombie, dead man walking through my life. What ended stage two this time was a series of three car accidents in six days. In the second of the two accidents, my car spun like a tea cup at Disney land across four lanes of an eight lane interchange and stopped facing Friday night traffic. It was in the middle of this one that I surrendered my life for the first time and asked that my death not be painful.
But it didn’t fully wake me up until the third accident two days later when it now involved other people and I wasn’t even driving the car. Once again, during my recuperation, I realized my life in Orange County: my marriage, my career, and my home were all structures I needed to leave.

When I entered stage four this time, I had moved back to Los Angeles and had begun a serious search to discover who I really was. In this void, I meditated and waited to be shown my next calling. I was given these seven stages for helping me to overcome the fear of change by providing a context for holding my experience. However, this time around Stage Four was more complex. It was as though a Pandora’s box of diseases began to manifest: Epstein Barr, Hashimotos thyroiditis, candida, and a host of allergies.

I ran through all the money from my property settlement trying to find medical help for the physical challenge du jour. As I struggled to support myself, my body began to go through yet another kind of challenge. My electrical system had become extremely sensitive. Energy would shoot through my body like lightning bolts sometimes for hours at a time. I could feel earthquakes before they hit, I felt a body blow the day before 9/11 that put me in a fetal position on my sofa on Sept 10, 2001.

What I learned through the years though was to begin to notice when change was coming. So in 2001 I had my own internal tower of inferno through out the year leading up to my third near fatal experience. I had become very fatigued and was developing respiratory challenges and then unexplained rashes. I mentioned to my acupuncturist who was treating me that I noticed grey stains forming on the linoleum in my kitchen. She suggested that perhaps my symptoms had a geopathic origin. In other words, my house was making me sick. I called in an environmental consultant and was told that everything in my house was contaminated by the most virulent, toxic fungus there is. Everything would have to be torched that could not survive a 50% bleach solution.

I had to walk away from everything I owned once again. But this time there was no resistance. I walked out the door and lived in a motel for two months and it would be another year of healing and recovery and dim prognoses from doctors who did not know how to treat neurotoxins. I applied some of the visualizations I gave to my patients and began to cooperate with my own healing abilities, choosing to hold a different prediction for my health than what the medical community could provide. I realized that I had chosen at a soul level to walk the path of a wounded healer: that every illness I encountered I had to heal myself without medical intervention. Having this context to hold my journey in allowed me to surrender. I chose to hold my time in transition without my health, a partner, family to depend on, or monetary resources as a time of great prosperity and eventually it did turn.

Although I would never say I have mastered change, I have become very observant and agile, aware that it can all change in a New York minute. I notice when anything in my life is no longer viable, and that includes beliefs along with lifestyle.

Each major change has taught me to listen, observe, and adapt, listen, observe, and adapt. By listening and observing where change is happening subtly, I have learned to prepare for bigger changes coming. When you are prepared, nothing has to be experienced as a crisis. As I write this, I am aware that a big change is coming again. I am being shown through my sleeping dreams, people I am meeting, and environmental disruptions ( my house was hit by a run away car) that change is afoot and that I must detach from my life as I know it.

This road, however steep, has also taught me the true nature of impermanence– things, people, my body all will eventually disintegrate and what really matters is how I spend this moment. Am I risking telling the truth in this moment, even if it requires facing the fear of loss? Telling the truth in my career and relationships has liberated me to reveal a new life blueprint that is constantly evolving and not encased by the faulty layers of cultural programs I inherited.

Mastering the building elements of the seven stages of my book The LifeQuake Phenomenon reconstructs the foundation of your body, mind, and spirit so that it is adaptable to change and what emerges is an authentic connection to this moment.

November 20 2009

Dr. Toni Galardi’s The LifeQuake Phenomenon Interviewed on Fascinating Authors

Dr. Toni From the LifeQuake Desk 2

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What excites you most about your book’s topic? Why did you choose it?

Author: What excites me most about my topic is that I created a model for helping people overcome the fear of change that can have a global effect as well. If we learn to anticipate when cycles in our lives are ending, we don’t have to bring in catastrophe to motivate us to change. We can end such disasters like 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina if we change how we negotiate change in our own lives. It also excites me that I have been able to use this model with individual clients, public seminars, in big business, and as a relapse prevention model in chemical dependency treatment facilities. I want people to be saved from the unnecessary suffering I went through to get this message.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: How long did the book take you from start to finish?

Author: The book itself took three years. The journey of writing the first proposal began twenty years ago.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What aspect of writing the book did you find particularly challenging?

Author: Editing out stories I had collected from all the interviews I had done to keep the number of pages manageable.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What surprised you the most about the book writing process?

Author: How much of it is editing.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Did you have any favorite experiences when writing your book?

Author: Up until 2008, every time I wrote a book proposal from 1990 to 2007, my life would go into another LifeQuake and the depth of the book would expand.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What do you hope your readers will gain from reading your book?

Author: I hope they will feel inspired to experience their LifeQuake as a rebirth not a disaster and that with this seven stage roadmap, it will get easier and easier to anticipate when to make changes and become more agile when dealing with sudden changes.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What projects are you currently working on?

Author: Most of my writing involves blogging, articles, media interviews to promote this book but I have an idea for my next book which has to de with redefining sexuality in America.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Is writing your sole career? If not, what else do you do?

Author: I am a career coach, psychotherapist, advice columnist, corporate trainer and public speaker.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Did you do any research for your books, or did you write from experience?

Author: Both. I did a lot of research into evolutionary psychology, conducted over 100 interviews, and read what had been said about mastering change in order to show the distinction in my model that addresses reconstructing the whole human at the body, mind, and spirit level. And I shared my experience.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: How did you come up with your title?

Author: I needed a word that was a metaphor for the process that interfaced humans and the earth: The earth has a core. We have a core. The earth has layers around it with faultlines running through it. We have layers of faulty programs from the old tribal paradigms. So when the soul wakes up and demands living authentically, it creates pressure in these fault lines that can translate into outer crisis if the person’s ego resists making changes. I called it The LifeQuake Phenomenon because this awakening is taking place globally. We are in a massive, collective shift that looks like economic collapse.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What books have influenced you the most?

Author: Pema Chodron’s “When Things Fall Apart” to explain the importance of resting into groundlessness and Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning that teaches one to have a soul filled context for suffering and loss that give one’s life meaning.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Who was your publisher and why did you choose them?

Author: My publisher is Wheatmark Publishing and I chose them because I wanted a free hand in writing my book while getting guidance where I needed it. They provide great hands on assistance and graphic designers for the cover. I was very pleased with how the book looks aesthetically to complement the content.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Tell us a little bit about your book.

Author: The LifeQuake Phenomenon is a body, mind, and spirit method for overcoming the fear of change, eliminating crisis as a catalyst for moving on, and learning how to thrive not just survive radical upheaval.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What inspired you to create a work of nonfiction?

Author: My life and the lives of the 100 people I interviewed. “Truth is stranger than fiction.”

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What did you do to prepare for writing your book?

Author: I experienced physical challenges, financial ruin, and confronted addiction issues. I took a journey that Jungians call “the descent into the abyss” that involved three near fatal experiences and a birth into my authentic self. I lived this model and wrote 7 versions of a book proposal over the course of 20 years.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: How did you develop your idea for this book?

Author: I saw that there was a pattern of how change occurs when a cycle in our psyche and lives are coming to a close and a construct for developing one’s new life purpose out of the chaos that ensues. I interviewed people on a talk show I did for two years, spoke on the subject of crisis and change at conferences, conventions, and workshops and did live radio as a guest. The feedback I received confirmed I was on the right track.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What can we look forward to in your next book?

Author: It is still marinating inside of me but I am musing the idea that we have a very schizophrenic approach to sexuality in this country and it has taken a toll on our body images. The shadow side of our Puritanism is the proliferation of pornography and child sexual abuse. We need a new model that has more respect and nurturing paid to the physical body.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Is there anything we haven’t covered that you would like to include?

Author: We are in an exciting time. What looks like chaos, ie. climate disasters, economic contraction, and the rise of addiction are all part of an evolutionary shift on the planet that will truly unite us as a global family. Everyone I interviewed shared that without their LifeQuakes they would never have expanded their consciousness into the awareness they stepped into. However, people need a road map and an inspiring context for holding the chaotic transitions going on in their lives so that they choose evolution over trying to hold onto the past. The LifeQuake Phenomenon delivers that model and roadmap!

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Thank you for taking the time to be part of this interview!

To learn more about the book and author, please visit: http://www.lifequake.net/

November 6 2009

Dr. Galardi quoted in New York Post article on Second Acts

Dr. Toni From the LifeQuake Desk, News finding your passion, job search, New York Post 1

Second acts
Some find upside in downsizing, as layoffs open new doors
New York Post
By VICKI SALEMI

Last Updated: 9:17 PM, November 2, 2009

Posted: 1:41 AM, November 2, 2009
When life handed lemons to Courtney Adams and Chris Merritt, they didn’t make lemonade. They made lasagna instead. Downsized within one week of each other last December and three weeks after signing their lease, the Harlem couple — she a former brand director in the music industry and he a former employee of a company that produced conferences — concocted an idea: Why not develop a business around Adams’ love for cooking?
“If there’s a passion you’ve always wanted to pursue, I can’t imagine a better opportunity to do it,” says Adams.

“You can’t spend 24 hours a day looking for a job, so you might as well make the best of your time trying to make some money on your own.”
So they created a business plan, developed a Web site and launched Uptown Comfort (“Good Food for Bad Times”), a comfort-food catering business with favorites like barbecued chicken sliders, lasagna and cornbread.
“Being unemployed has been a truly defining experience,” says Merritt. “After so many years working with many parameters and expectations, you suddenly are free to define those parameters for yourself.”

For Dan Nainan of Chelsea, a former strategic relations manager at Intel, getting the ax meant being free to hang up the corporate suit and pick up a mike. He’d started flexing his comedic muscles by performing on weekends, as his job took him around the world doing technical demos in front of large crowds. After he was given the pink slip, the action plan became a no-brainer: Nainan pursued stand-up comedy full-throttle.
Since then, he’s been booked solid. He’s performed at the Democratic National Convention, did three Obama inaugural events in January and just shot a commercial for Apple, to name a few. And he owes it to an event that at the time seemed anything but a boon.
“I loved my job and wouldn’t have had the guts to leave on my own,” he says.

Not every layoff victim ends up finding a blessing in disguise in a pink slip, but such experiences are a lot more common than one might think, says Rachelle J. Canter, president of the executive coaching firm RJC Associates and author of “Make the Right Career Move.”
“How many of us have been miserable in jobs but afraid to make a change because we don’t know how to land a new job and are often too scared to try?” she says.
When she did a survey several years ago of employees who’d lost jobs, “the vast majority said losing the job was the best thing that ever happened to them because they needed a kick in the pants to find jobs they liked much more.”
On a roll
For Michael Dolan of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, the kick in the pants came the day he was downsized from his job as a publicist for a technology software company in SoHo.
“I was totally blindsided,” he said. “Things seemed like business as usual and then, boom! No job.”
Disillusioned and worried about paying the bills, he nonetheless realized he’d been given an opportunity to focus on his love for bicycle racing, something his intensive work schedule hadn’t allowed.
“For the past six months I’ve been training two hours a day and racing competitively on weekends. I’m in the best shape of my life, completely destressing and having a blast,” he says.
And biking has done more than tone his thigh muscles — it’s opened up a possible new career.

Having discovered a love for taking photos of bike races, Dolan recently landed his first paid photography gig, and is considering pursuing that line of work full-time.
“I’ve been shooting as many events as I can, sending out my photos to magazines and Web sites, and improving my post-production skills by learning Photoshop and Lightroom,” he says.
“Getting laid off feels like you’re being pushed off a cliff. I figured I would just make the best of it. Put yourself out there and you may discover a hidden skill.”
Whether he knew it or not, Dolan was following the advice given to pink-slippers by psychotherapist Dr. Toni Galardi, the author of “The LifeQuake Phenomenon,” which addresses taking advantage of times of crisis to make life changes. If you’ve got a hobby or an outlet that you enjoy, pursue it; if you don’t, find one.
“The key during career transition is to stay passionate,” she says. “The vibe you give off will attract opportunities if you’re doing something you love every day besides job searching.”
For Suzette Banzo, being able to follow her bliss was exactly what was missing from her life during the 16 years she spent working for Verizon, first in quality assurance and then doing budget analysis.
“It was impossible to get time off from my job to pursue anything of interest to me,” she says.
Getting downsized took care of that issue, and it led her in an unexpected direction — modeling. It started when she was approached at a fund-raising event by the owner of a training program for plus-size models, who suggested she could do well in the business.
“I thought she was crazy,” says Banzo — but soon she was on the catwalk. Since then she’s shot a commercial for Kodak and walked the runway for Full Figure Fashion Week, which landed her a gig as a signature model for Hearts Desire Jewelry, and a role as the company’s East Coast sales representative.
“The designer tapped into my marketing degree, and we now collaborate on promotions and marketing strategies,” she says. Once frustrated as a “creative person in a finance job,” she says, “I’ve spent the last year being everything I had put on hold for far too long.”
Even for those who are content in their careers and aim to return to their industry, a layoff can provide an opportunity to do something meaningful.

Rob Morrison, a former NBC news anchor, learned this when he was bought out of his contract last year, and found “an unexpected gift” in staying home with his 3-year-old son Jack.
Something else unexpected came out of it, when the 20-year veteran of broadcast news launched a popular blog on Huffington Post called “Daddy Diaries: Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Anchorman.”
“To have an outlet like that was key, and gave me a break from Handy Manny and Mickey Mouse,” says the Upper West Sider. Plus, he notes, it was a great way to keep his name out there.
Back on his feet, now with CBS2, Morrison looks back at his 16-month sabbatical as a mitzvah.
“I logged a lot of playground hours and got to watch my toddler turn into a little boy,” he says. “It was fascinating.”
His blog came to an end when his unemployed days did, but he’s since been contacted by a filmmaker who’s doing a documentary on the recession, and is interested in featuring Morrison, and possibly using him as a writer or narrator.
Shifting gears
As the job market opens up, what happens to blossoming side gigs? In some cases, like Morrison’s, they may fade into the background. Merritt of Uptown Comfort landed a new job at Macy’s as special-events manager, but is still helping out with strategizing for the catering business.
Adams is still on the hunt. And she hopes her experience starting and running the business is an extra selling point on her resume, where it’s listed in the skills and achievements section. In an interview, she says, “I’d present it as a learning experience that culminated from not being employed and needing to direct my talents to do something productive.”
Such ambition and drive is likely to impress a prospective employer, notes Canter.
“Is there an employer who dislikes initiative or who prefers candidates that lounged around the house or perfected their golf game while laid-off?” she asks.
While Adams hopes to keep the business going even should she land full-time work, she says she’d be quick to tell a potential employer that she’d hand over management to one of her consultants or fold the business if there were a conflict.
For her part, Banzo hopes to continue finding ways to use her marketing skills within the plus-size modeling business, and is trying other things as well, including writing for a trade magazine that covers the industry. She’s not entirely sure where this new road is headed, but has no doubt it’s a detour she’s glad to have taken, even if it wasn’t initially by choice.
“I feel like I’m finally living my life,” she says.

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When life handed lemons to Courtney Adams and Chris Merritt, they didn’t make lemonade. They made lasagna instead.

Downsized within one week of each other last December and three weeks after signing their lease, the Harlem couple — she a former brand director in the music industry and he a former employee of a company that produced conferences — concocted an idea: Why not develop a business around Adams’ love for cooking?

“If there’s a passion you’ve always wanted to pursue, I can’t imagine a better opportunity to do it,” says Adams. “You can’t spend 24 hours a day looking for a job, so you might as well make the best of your time trying to make some money on your own.”
SALAD DAYS: Laid off from the music industry and looking for a job, Courtney Adams decided to parlay her love of cooking into a catering business.
Lorenzo Ciniglio/Freelance
SALAD DAYS: Laid off from the music industry and looking for a job, Courtney Adams decided to parlay her love of cooking into a catering business.

So they created a business plan, developed a Web site and launched Uptown Comfort (“Good Food for Bad Times”), a comfort-food catering business with favorites like barbecued chicken sliders, lasagna and cornbread.

“Being unemployed has been a truly defining experience,” says Merritt. “After so many years working with many parameters and expectations, you suddenly are free to define those parameters for yourself.”

Since then, he’s been booked solid. He’s performed at the Democratic National Convention, did three Obama inaugural events in January and just shot a commercial for Apple, to name a few. And he owes it to an event that at the time seemed anything but a boon.

“I loved my job and wouldn’t have had the guts to leave on my own,” he says.

“How many of us have been miserable in jobs but afraid to make a change because we don’t know how to land a new job and are often too scared to try?” she says.

When she did a survey several years ago of employees who’d lost jobs, “the vast majority said losing the job was the best thing that ever happened to them because they needed a kick in the pants to find jobs they liked much more.”

October 26 2009

” Braking Down When Your Soul is Breaking Open: How Car Accidents Symbolize Fear of Change”

Dr. Toni From the LifeQuake Desk ABC, chiropractor, dream symbolism, fear of change, life transition, View from the Bay 31

In the past four days I have been contacted by three people who all were in vehicular accidents: two auto, one motorcycle. In the midst of this I was a guest on a television talk show called View From the Bay. see
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=view_from_the_bay/everything_else&id=7079894. I referenced having had three car accidents in 6 days and have certainly referenced it in my public speaking and other blogs. I realized however, that although I go into more depth about the symbolism of car accidents in my book The LifeQuake Phenomenon, I haven’t discussed in greater depth what they can symbolize in my blog.

Have you ever had a dream where you are the driver of a car and the brakes go out at high speed or you are a passenger and the driver is navigating recklessly all over the road? The first of these can mean you feel your life is out of control and moving too fast. The latter can mean you feel that someone else is in control, recklessly in the driver’s seat of your life. Cars in dreams often symbolize how we are moving through our lives. In the second stage of one of my client’s LifeQuake, he received four parking tickets in a two week period and then his car brake disengaged while parked and rolled into the street. My interpretation of this was that he was over parked in his life and needed to move on from a career he no longer wanted.

In my case, I needed to leave my marriage and was hit from behind three times to push me forward. You really know you need to move on when you think the answer is to stop driving and then get hit while you’re a passenger in the back seat! This was the third and final experience that got me to realize I was holding onto a life that was over.

In a city like Los Angeles, people are very identified with their cars. A car accident can represent a structural change. When a person incurs a back or neck injury, they see a chiropractor unless it requires the medical intervention of an orthopedic surgeon. The opportunity that seeing a chiropractor during a time of great transition provides is that you have to get off “the hamster wheel” and lay still while someone re-aligns your neck and spine three times a week for six weeks. The combination of this pause and restructuring can be used to contemplate the meaning of your accident and what it is trying to tell you.

I would suggest that any illness can be used to turn inward and ask what the function of this is for your life. Besides car accidents, I have found that when I’ve had the flu or a head cold that kept me in bed, I would do this little exercise.
Imagine there is a beautiful ball of light three feet above your head. Breathe in this light through the top of your head. Focus its energy on your neck and spine if you’ve had an accident or are in pain there. If your chest or head is congested ( such as in a cold) focus the light there. For five minutes, just breathe a warm, golden light into your body and then bring your awareness to your heart. Breathe the light into your heart. Now, once you feel a little peace and quiet there, imagine a spiritual guide that you either see or feel the presence of. Ask the guide this question, ” what do you want me to know right now? What is the next step I need to be taking in my life? And then listen patiently for the answer. It may come immediately and it may come at a later time when you least expect it.

When you are back on the mend, you will now be more awake and pro-active. The key to no longer needing wake up calls like car accidents and illnesses is to develop a daily practice of turning within and asking this question: what is my next step? and then decide. Everything comes from your decision. It is all you need to know because it is all you can do next.

Dr. Toni Galardi is a licensed psychotherapist, transitions coach, and public speaker. She works with people all over the world by phone. 310-712-2600.

From the LifeQuake Desk

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