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Spring Moves Forward as Mercury and Jupiter Retrogrades – What to Do Next

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“It is only when we are truly alone without someone else to lean on; left with our own inner solitude that we can undergo a real process of change.
The introspection that is needed to bring out the light that has dwindled down to ash and reignite the fire of our being.
So let the darkness shape you, let it reform you, let it cradle you and birth you into a new life; a new way of being.
Let the spark flame again, in the darkness is where you will find it.”
― L.J. Vanier, Ether: Into the Nemesis
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

Ask the LifeQuake Doctor/ Counselor Mag/ “Losing Your Teeth” to Workaholism

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Dear Dr. Toni:

I don’t know what to do about my younger sister. She is a recovering alcoholic so alcohol is not the issue right now. She neglected her teeth and now is facing $40,000 in dental bills as well as significant bone loss in her upper and lower jaw. This is not a person who comes from lower economic circumstances. She has a very successful but young company (three years old) but became maniacal in getting it launched.

It was more important to get her product into Bergdorf’s than it was to take care of her health. She has lost a significant amount of weight and has become obsessed with talking about all her regrets at having neglected herself. She also goes over and over the graphic details of the distortions in her face now. She blames me for referring her to the old dentist whom she feels should have warned her. The latest is that she believes that one of her friend’s may have put a curse on her. This friend supposedly has kept voo doo dolls. Hard to believe of a woman who is part of Hollywood’s elite but, who knows?

I suggested therapy. I’ve suggested workshops. I suggested just plain forgiving herself and moving on and she refuses to do that. She isn’t going to meetings either. She has told me she just wants to die. She tells me she can’t be the face of a product that’s brand involves beauty. I don’t know what to do. I have threatened her that I will get a psychiatric hospital involved and 5150 her.

What do you suggest? Should she be hospitalized given that she refuses to see a doctor and take medication? I am worried sick about her. Your thoughts?

 

By the way, I love your column. I read it at my shrink’s office and was just curious about another professional opinion.

Distressed Reader

Dear Reader:

My heart goes out to you. Let’s talk about you first. It sounds like you have offered your sister many options. It also sounds like she is not interested in helping herself. She wants to blame you and others. What emotions are kicking up in you out of this drama with your sister? Take a moment. Breathe through your mouth down into your body. Think about your sister and then find where the emotion is triggered in your body.

Keep surrendering into the feeling through your breath. Ask your body to show you the youngest version of you that first had this feeling. Now, what is under that feeling? For example, under the feeling that you might lose your sister might be a fear of being alone. You don’t mention if you have other siblings or a partner. Another feeling that might emerge is that you were put in charge of this sibling when you were younger. Even if your parents are dead, unconsciously you might feel you are still responsible for her if they instructed you to always take care of her. It might be useful to work with your therapist on the contract you may have made regarding her.

Lastly, I would suggest that you go to Alanon. By getting a sponsor, you will have someone you can reach out to every day right now.

To answer your question about a 5150: Once you put her in the system, you will not have any control over what happens to her. It is a crap shoot as to who the attending staff will be and what drugs they choose to give her. Also, unless she is actively suicidal; has told you specifically how she would kill herself and/or when, a mere wanting to die because of her condition will probably not hold water. It will also be on her medical records. This is a great example of how sobriety does not guarantee that the addict will show up for their health and well being. Workaholism can replace alcohol as a the next addiction.

Go to Alanon and work with the emotions that she is triggering in you. The more at peace you are with whatever choices she makes, the less attention she is getting for her response to her medical and dental condition. The more you hold her in your mind as whole just the way she is and that you are not responsible for her decisions anymore, now that you both are adults, the greater the possibility she will help herself. In Alanon, this is called radical acceptance.

I hope this is helpful. At this time of year, the holidays trigger so much unfinished business with our families. However, if we get past Madison Avenue’s messages that everyone else is having a Hallmark moment with their families, “Christmas and Hanukah Neurosis” can be a time to heal the past if you step back and clean up your own side of the street. Consult your own therapist if she becomes actively suicidal as to the next step.

 

Dr. Toni Galardi is a licensed psychotherapist, author of The LifeQuake Phenomenon and a well known consultant/expert on career repurposing as part of recovery in the addiction field.

 

Dr. Toni has been the advice columnist for Counselor Magazine for over 7 years. If you have a question for The LifeQuake Doctor, you can write to her through: drtoni@drtonigalardi.com or by calling 310-890-6832. She also works by phone and SKYPE in private practice. Her coaching website is http://www.thelifequakedoctor.com

 

 

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!

“Ask the LifeQuake Doctor”, March issue

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Vision Magazine

Spring is coming and with it will come some interesting astrological transits. We haven’s seen this kind of line up from the stars since the tumultuous era of major social movements in the 1960’s. It has been suggested by many futurists that we will see war again.  I urge you all to clean house internally of your own self – limiting beliefs that put you at war with yourself. What happens on a global level occurs within each of us first – and that is the good news – we can change the world from within!

Dear Dr. Toni:

I have been an entertainment executive for 10 years. I need to keep the details a bit obtuse. I have to be very discrete. I have been very successful at what I do, I know a lot of famous people, and I feel dead inside. I feel like I am phoning it in. I know I need to leave my job. I even know what I want to do. I want to be a writer. Lately I’ve been having dreams in which I’m flying and have wings on my back. I see this light above me and it is calling me and then I look down and I see the world in its suffering and I find myself starting to fall. I’ve also had a recurring dream about earthquakes. What is this about?

What should I do? I picked up this magazine while having coffee on impulse because I’m not a new-agey person and haven’t been religious for a long time.  So, my question is, should I quit my job? I have money to live on for a year but then what?

Confused, Wannabe Scribe

Dear Reader:

Dreams can give us very prescient information. We know now that there is no such thing as linear time – past, present, and future. When we are asleep, our mind is able to step out of this present reality and step into what we think of as the future.  In my practice as a change strategy coach, I have my clients begin from the first session keeping a pad of paper next to their beds. You are fortunate. Most people do not remember their dreams until they learn how to stimulate dream recall.

So, let’s look at this dream: You are flying with wings on your back. This may be symbolic of transcendence. As you look up, you see the light and it is CALLING YOU. When you look down, you start to fall as you see the part of the world that is suffering. If this were my dream, I would say that I am being called by my soul to express that in me that lifts me up, expresses my passion, makes me lighter.  Looking down is a metaphor for a perception of reality that focuses on the world’s lack.

There are many blessings in this world and when you are expressing your full potential self, you can see them. You don’t say how old you are but life is short. Pursue your dream and trust that you will be in the right place with the right people and right opportunities in a year. I would also suggest that this dream is saying that you are being called to develop the spiritual side of yourself. This is a dream about you evolving, transcending the negative ego that is telling you to hold onto false security.

Now, about your earthquake dreams. In my book The LifeQuake Phenomenon, I share that earthquakes are a metaphor for us. We came from Mother Earth and just like her, we also have layers around our core. These layers are made up of our  false programming. When the soul decides to emerge in a more authentic form, it puts pressure on these layers through the fault-lines just like in earthquakes and a crisis shows up in our lives that forces us to wake up. My sense is that your unconscious is warning you: If you do not take action and follow what you are being called to do next, you will bring in a crisis to assist your soul in its path.

Picking up this magazine was indeed a divine coincidence. I hope you pick it up again and read my response! I want to add one more thing and this is for all of us, many people are having earthquake and tsunami dreams these days. I do think we will see more earthquakes and that the east coast will experience them again as well. However, I think it is our mass consciousness that is in upheaval as we go through this next evolutionary transition and it is our consciousness that may affect earth changes. Remember, what we know from quantum physics, there is no separation between organisms, we are all one. When we make brave choices that express our authentic selves, the world thrives.

Monday Mar 5th I will be interviewed live at 4:20 PST on Read My Lips with Bonnie Graham, call in for questions: 310-807-5219.

I will be speaking on The Wealth for Women Global Summit along with 17 powerful New Thought Leaders that include Marci Shimoff and John Gray. Just by signing up you will have access to $500 in free gifts and 90% off all the services of these amazing speakers. My interview will air Tuesday, Mar 27 at 1:00 PM, PST.

Dr. Toni Galardi is an author, licensed psychotherapist, professional speaker, and life transitions strategist and is available for consult by phone or SKYPE. . You can reach her through her website, http://www.lifequake.net or DrToni@LifeQuake.net, or 310-890-6832.

Ask the LifeQuake Doctor – October issue/ Vision Magazine

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Ask the LifeQuake Doctor

October 2011

Dear Readers:

As we enter the season of change when things in nature reach their fruition and then begin to deteriorate, so are the cycles of life. The wise person notices when aspects of their life are no longer vital and begins to plan for the next chapter. Unfortunately, most of us are so busy living life from our routines that we don’t take the time to notice that a new blueprint is emerging for our lives. Currently, the world is in great evolutionary transition, this emerging new reality is appearing as a state of chaos.

In January, I am beginning a new teleclass series to prepare us for entering 2012 with greater resilience and centeredness along with an opportunity to design a life that fulfills your greatest potential self even if it currently feels a bit chaotic. I hope you will join me on this exciting adventure.

Dear Dr. Toni:

I am a psychotherapist so have never written to an advice columnist before. I have been involved with a wealthy man for the past six months. My career is in transition. I am hoping to become a professional speaker to augment my income. My boyfriend has been paying for my marketing efforts and medical bills.

Recently, he told me that he didn’t think we were a long term fit because I am not masterful at being a domestic engineer, something he says he wants in a wife and I don’t share his passion for hard rock and roll and water skiing. The confusion for me is that we have this amazing intimate relationship sexually, spiritually, and psychologically and it has gotten even better in the last month. He said he is not interested in anyone else and doesn’t want to end our relationship but just doesn’t want to get my hopes up that we will get married. I do want to get married. I am in my 50’s as is he, so there is no urgency to find someone to father my children as I do not have children.

Should I continue the relationship?

Dazed and Confused in Chicago

Dear Reader:

Most shrinks would advise you to get out. I see this a little differently. My question to you is, what are your relationship needs at this time?  Can you stay in the present and really enjoy this relationship as a love affair or will you find yourself getting angry because he doesn’t see you as wife material?

If he wasn’t wealthy and you knew this was not long term, would you continue? What are you learning in the relationship that has nothing to do with what he provides for you financially? You say you want to get married? Why? And what will you learn from being with this man that will support you in evolving into the woman you want to be who is ready for marriage?

Most of my responses to you are questions rather than answers, as you can see. Given that you are a psychotherapist, I sense you are better served by this line of inquiry than direct advice.

Good luck and have fun!

Dear Dr. Toni

I am a trans-gender man who has been in a long – term relationship with a woman. She and I were lovers when I was still a woman. Recently, I have noticed that I am more interested in women who are either heterosexual or just very feminine lesbians. There is a woman at my work who has expressed an interest in me. She knows I am a trans-gender man.

I love my wife and don’t want to divorce her but this desire for other women has been growing for the past year. What should I do? Should I tell her or just play it out once and see if my attraction has any substance? I love your column and would be most appreciative if you respond to questions like this.

John A.

Dear John:

I admire your courage in reaching out and in following your heart on changing genders. Like all couples, when you are in a long – term relationship, a point comes where boredom sets in and the desire for someone different than the spouse we have often manifests. The question I have is, have you openly talked about these feelings with your wife? Talk about it in terms that do not indicate you are going to act on them but want to explore what the attraction is. Would it matter if your wife dressed in more feminine clothing or sexy lingerie?  Is there anything in your sex life that you would like changed or expanded?

I would urge you not to do what has been historically true with heterosexual men and just act out of an inclination or titillation. Also, consider seeing a marriage counselor if you need a third party professional to work this through with.

All the best to you.

Dr. Toni Galardi is a licensed psychotherapist, career coach, public speaker, organizational consultant, and the author of the book, The LifeQuake Phenomenon: How to Thrive (not just survive) in Times of Personal and Global Upheaval.

To submit questions for  “Ask the LifeQuake Doctor” or if you would like to consult Dr. Galardi for SKYPE or phone coaching, she can be reached through her website at http://www.LifeQuake.net or 310-890-6832. Enrollment for her new teleclass begins Oct 5.

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