2013 New Years Resolution

I don't know about you but every year on this day I make a New Years Resolution or as I like to look at it as an "Intention for the New Year." I want no pressure but pure inspiration. So I wrote it out last night and I hope it inspires you to do the same. Make it simple, clear and written on the exhale.

I am inspired by Danielle LaPorte, blogger, teacher, coach, change-maker and speaker. I love this

Cosmic Radio: an audio contemplation for total encouragement

She says, "If this audio experience doesn’t open your heart and get you to sit up prouder … well, it will. This is a sonic love letter from your fellow earthlings. For best results, play on repeat and before and after every lunch break." Give it a listen and let it open your heart: Cosmic Radio

Wishing you the most radiant Fearless New Year!

Mary Ann

We Survived 2012!

Yes, it's the end of 2012 and we survived! I knew we would. However, I also knew that the world would end as we knew it. I could feel it in my blood, my soul and my gut. It was no surprise, in retrospect, that I had surgery on my gut right before the end of the year. Did I plan it? No. Have I learned lessons? Yes. Let me be an example of a woman who pushed too hard, fought to make things work and swam against the current. It was a lot of struggle and effort. It's a really bad habit....just functioning on adrenalin. Now, reflecting on this past year, I know to flow with the river, breathe in the brilliant air and exhale the dark night of the soul. Be the eye of the hurricane and dance with the wind of life.

We have just twirled into the new world, new energy and a road with a new adventure. No longer can we push against the flow of the life force but be one with it. Yes, I am getting very philosophical but it feels good to my soul. In the warm vortex of pure positive energy I feel like I have just sipped on a cup of sweet hot chocolate. Oh, this is what I long to feel in this new world, this new year! I deeply long for breathing space and the opportunity to turn it down a notch, to slow dance across Lake Hollywood which is my ultimate symbol of my environment. I seem to walk the line between Hollywood and Bollywood. In the rambling of my blog I think I will discover what my bliss is or at least get a sip of it. So bare with me while I dive into my poetic self and play with some thoughts.

This New World everyone is talking about, does anyone feel it? Or is it a bunch of new age babble? What are your thoughts? I mean, really this year I felt something coming on. It felt like my skin was peeling and I was about to put on a new suite. I truly hope that 2013 is easier. However, let's get real, it's me creating it not the year! But it feels better to blame it on the year. I must say, 13 is my lucky number. I am grateful for all that I have accomplished this year, bumps and all. It's been a fabulous ride so far and I expect it to be even better.

Yours in the Fearless Vortex of Live,

Mary Ann

Inspired by a Fearless Girl

 I stumbled upon a video of 13 year old Talia Castellano who has been battling cancer for six years. She follows her passion and her bliss by creating a youtube channel and gives makeup tutorials. She is smart, funny, fearless inspiring and adorable. She is really great doing makeup! Her dream was always to be on the Ellen Show. She started a campaign to get Ellen's attention. She accomplished her goal and was featured on Ellen's show several months ago.View Talia's segment on the Ellen Show.

Talia was surprised with being an honorary Cover Girl!

Talia says:
"Having cancer has been a gift yet a horrible, horrible, terrifying thing. But I've gotten so many benefits from it...
Having a Youtube channel and having to inspire people and having people look up to me and explaining to you guys how I love and adore makeup, using it as my wig and having so much self-confidence to go out to the grocery store without a wig... it's just amazing."

This young fearless girl gave me such fearless inspiration. When I get pains in my gut or experience fatigue and start feeling depressed, I think of Talia and it makes me stop, inhale and connect with what's important for me. When you see someone so young having such a challenge and still pursuing her passion in-spite of it all, it makes me pause to think, "What is stopping me from going for my passion and following my bliss?"

I am grateful to Talia for her fearless inspiration. I am a big fan of hers and  subscribe to her Youtube Channel. Plus, you can learn a heck of a lot about makeup!

Fearlessly Yours,

Mary Ann

PS: Don't forget to buy your copy or copies of my new book Fearless Women, Visions of a New World. Just this month when you buy a book you get the second one for half price! You will also receive free a Fearless Women, Visions and Wisdom Calendar 2013 It's a great holiday gift for a fearless friend, Mother or Sister. Call the studio to order this special and have them personally signed. Order NOW: 323-874-8500

Simple inspiration...going back to basics

For the last couple of months I feel like I crashed and burned. I feel like the rug has been pulled out from underneath me. My body has been screaming for change, relief, rest and healing.  In old posts you can glean the gory details...really not so gory and not too many details. I went to a doctor at UCLA who studies stress, the mind and digestive disease. After sitting with me and my husband Joe (who is my prince of healing) for over an hour taking down all the history of the last two months with other doctors, he asks me if I meditate. Joe started explaining what meds I was taking. I said to him, "Joe he didn't ask if I medicate. He asked if I meditate!" I think we were both stunned that a medical doctor asked me such a simple but profound question.

Just as I write this, my former assistant, Michele called. She and her partner moved to South Carolina to a small town to "get back to basics." She explained that she felt so much stress in her life and wanted to connect to the simple things in life, walking on the beach, meditating, contemplating on who she was on a soul level and what is the perfect passionate next step for her to take. These words are simple inspiration for my ears, gut, heart and soul. I inhale the relief at the idea of "going back to basics."

Don't we all say, "I've been so crazy busy!" We profess it like a badge of honor. It's part of our social facade that we have to keep people at arms length, mask what we are really feeling and run from fear which is truly our underlying motivation.  The pain in my gut is symbolic of what is going on in the world and my world. I feel like I have swallowed the energy of this planet shifting. Why do I do that? One of my major messages in life is, "I have to work really hard to get what I want in life." Everything must be toil and effort. Somewhere in my consciousness is the big fear that I won't financially survive. What if I get too ill to work and bring money in? It's a bunch of shit that I bought into and a big lie. However, I have swallowed and digested those toxic thoughts again and again and now it's time to poop them out once and for all and not eat them ever ever again!

Today will be my day of meditation and contemplation on what "going back to basics" means to me. It's time for me to discover the real world of beauty, peace, joy, prosperity and give it to myself and then, then give it to the world.

It's my birthday next week, December 20th.  The day before the end of the world. I feel that my world as I have seen it, through the lens of struggle, is ending and a new one is beginning. It's my Birth Day! I welcome the new and improved version of me in my new found choice of simple inspiration and going back to basics.

Fearlessly Yours in Love, Inspiration and Joy,

Mary Ann

Sunday Morning Reflections

In my pain and wounded being, I breathe through the sadness, the discomfort, the fear and the hopelessness I feel in my broken body. Yes, me, the fearless woman...I feel broken. I know I am NOT broken but sadly that is how I feel in this moment of wallowing in self pity. Hey, I know it's there so why not take advantage of the drama? I'm an artist I deserve a piece of wallow!

My decision to blog about the depth of my darkness is part of my plan (do I have one?) to heal my body and soul. I know on the other side of this is "pure positive energy and bliss." Consciously, I know that I have  a choice to feel good or to feel bad. My belly aches, not only from being cut into and probed but also aches from the emotional pain that is bubbling up into my heart. Is this resistance? What am I resisting? Perhaps I am resisting gratitude. However, I am caught hemoraging this angst that is so palpable that it throbs throughout my body and rings in my ears.

In the past, this is where I would hide out, posture or whine and cry to my sweet husband Joe. Here's where I step out into my new self and see the new me rising above all this "stuff." Here's where I reach out to those I know love me, support me and allow me to dive into the muck and mire of my dark diva. Here's where I allow me to "sit with myself." Here's where I let go of my perception of who I am supposed to be as a "fearless" leader. Ouch, that makes me cringe. Here's where I breathe into the healing of what Spirit has to offer so beautifully, sumptuously and lovingly. Here's where I sit in my truth. Here's where I open my tired eyes to inspirational teachers and soak in the wisdom of their experience...

“This month I invite you to sit with yourself in the middle of a feeling that is uncomfortable. Feel the pain. I hope you can hear me whisper this to you, with the love of the ages in my voice, a strength and gentleness that wraps around you. I have faith in your ability to heal yourself. I have faith in your ability to contain and absorb and dance with the truth of exactly where you find yourself in this moment. I have faith in all of us.”
-Tama Kieves, enewsletter

So here I sit in my purple chair gazing out at the gray sky with palm trees poking up to the clouds. I hope it pours again. I long to stand naked in the rain to cleanse my whole being. Then my earth body would be clean again and I can take it off, hang it on the line to dry and let my soul glow magnificently with the freedom that it should be.

And the fearless healing continues...