Young Sugar Chile Robinson smiling while playing the keyboard
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Sugar Chile Robinson

by Emma Laurence

What is it that delights us about a child prodigy? Surprising talent flows naturally and joyfully in someone so young that we’re baffled.

Where does it come from? Whether we believe the gift is in-born, earned in past lives, or a simply a mystery, there’s no denying the result.

Smile big as you watch Sugar Chile Robinson at age six (less than 2 min.):

Did you happen to notice Sugar’s hands on the keyboard? Young Sugar Chile hits the keys in a way that suits his hands, not the restricted manner in which a player might be schooled.

We each have talents as natural to us as piano was to Sugar Chile at age six. We play the keys in our own way. But sometimes our gift is so natural to us, we don’t even recognize it.

I had a friend who could listen to anyone’s story without making a ripple. Holding profound respect at being invited to listen, the storyteller’s pain, joy, growth, learning, or simple observation emerged in all its fullness.

He never saw his gift as any big deal. But we did.

What’s your unrecognized gift? Maybe you just naturally:

  • know how to be patient when someone needs extra time
  • make others feel included in social situations
  • keep a cool head in an emergency
  • lighten a heavy moment with humor
  • repair any machine that’s broken
  • appreciate animals and advocate for them
  • distill complex ideas into simple, comprehensible statements

What’s most common to us may seem insignificant. It’s not. It’s music!

Today, when you notice someone else’s “invisible” talent, name it for them.

Help them see, and maybe you’ll begin to notice yours, too.

That is living as music.

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Take a look at this if you are in a major life transition and need help.
💛Emma

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Find Your Rhythm. Harmonize with your heart.

Riding the rhythm, the Nicholas brothers best tap dancers of all times shown here in mid-air
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Riding the Rhythm

by Emma Laurence

Two of the greatest tap dancers who ever lived, the Nicholas Brothers, bring fresh, dynamic, awe-inspiring expression to riding musical rhythm.

As if born in synchronicity with each other and with big band music, these gifted dancers fly. Pause now to experience their surprising story, sound, and way of riding rhythm (less than 2 min):

The Brothers’ level of rhythmic genius is precise, acrobatic, and fluid. Can you hear/feel their tap shoes matching the beat of the music?

Most impressive to me is the joy with which the Nicholas Brothers dance to a song they didn’t even like! Yet, they found a way through their love of music and dance.

That’s inspiring—and gives us a key to navigate more easily.

When the soundtrack of our lives turns sour, we can sweeten the discord. The Nicholas Brothers offer an image of moving gracefully and playfully in a distasteful situation.

We may be frustrated by our current job, ending a relationship, having to relocate cross country, or facing a real health concern. Whatever the story, for the moment we’re in a tough time.

Let’s remember the Nicholas Brothers and lean into the rhythm, find something in the song we can dance to and be inspired to stay light on our feet.

Bring the best we can, given the circumstances, without self-judgment. The song won’t last forever. We, too, can be riding the rhythm, tapping lightly.

That is living as music.

P.S. Want to see the Nicholas Brothers as kids? check out their Lucky Number “audition”



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Navigate more easily through the art & science of sound

Sam the Eagle Muppet as News Anchor. An example of how to play with your powerful chyron!
Burnout Support

Play With Your Powerful Chyron

by Emma Laurence

When we’re burned out, it’s natural to start thinking we’ve failed. Self-defeating messages run like a chyron scrolling the bottom of our mind screen. They gain momentum on every pass.

And just like a chyron, these messages can be easy to tune out. But the mind accepts and absorbs them whether or not we’re aware of our self-judgment.

For example, if we’re internally scrolling, “Exhaustion, overwhelm, and burnout prove that I’m a failure,” we do ourselves a great disservice.

Blaming ourselves for not being able to keep up, to compete, or to fit in—whether in a workplace or social space—roadblocks our individual, precious evolution.

What’s Your Chyron?

So, pause and pay attention for a moment. What’s your powerful chyron today? If it needs tweaking, try playing with an uplifting headline.

My favorite place to start is with a technique borrowed from my actor training— Stanislavsky’s the Magic If. The phrase, “But what if I’m not a failure?” frees my imagination to seek new thoughts.

Have fun with your chyron! Set it scrolling across your inner screen and test the power of your choice. Whatever you set up for the mind to play with, it will.

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Here’s more help with burnout recovery. And here’s the free Beyond Burnout Playbook to get started on your own.

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Image source: https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Sam_the_Eagle?file=WGFNews.jpg

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Pace Yourself for Fun

by Emma Laurence

I decided to learn to play pickleball, just for fun. I didn’t want more stress, competition, or striving for excellence in my life. I wanted to enjoy the sport, to pace myself for fun.

To start, I took a pickleball clinic at a nearby recreation center. It was tough! In the first session I got completely overwhelmed. Too much information = not a good time. I couldn’t filter through all the rules, strategies, and scoring. I just wanted to practice getting the ball over the net.

Maybe for the first time in my life, I didn’t care about being good immediately. I wanted to meet my fellow players. I was willing to learn by making mistakes.

Are We Having Fun Yet?

I almost didn’t go back. But I’d paid for the clinic, and I don’t like to give up. So, I went the second time. This time wasn’t as much overwhelming as it was shame inducing. We learned how to serve by cycling through a drill where one person served and the other returned the ball. The whole group watched. Oy. I tensed right up and couldn’t even get the ball into the court.

Then I really didn’t want to go back.

I was up most of the night before session #3. It’s one thing to have patience with becoming good; it’s another to be painfully bad.

The Courage To Have Fun

Then I remembered that I get self-centered in these types of situations, making it all about me. It’s not about me! I’m not the center of the universe. This class is not about me; it’s about all of us learning together, including the teacher.

Actually, the teacher seemed as nervous to be teaching as I was to be singled out. Maybe that’s why she gave us so much information all at once. Or, why she said she wouldn’t be able to learn our names.

Now, I’ve been in the field of education a long time, and it would’ve been easy for me to blame her for not coming across as caring, or not being good at organizing the curriculum. But maybe she was just insecure, like me.

So I made a choice to override shame, pull together all my courage, and go again—reminding myself of the goal to have fun. If people pitied me, or no one wanted to play with me, oh well. By asking specific questions, maybe I could even help her to teach me better.

That class was the breakthrough! I noticed two things:

Relinquishing my place as the center of the universe, I observed that others looked ridiculous at times, too. And I saw that we all make great shots as well as bad shots.

Sometimes, it’s the courage to show up once more that allows an experience to flip over to fun.

Stretch But Don’t Break

The next week, I stretched further by attending open pickleball for beginners. I played with someone new. I liked her. She was forgiving.

One member of the other team looked older. Turned out, she was 80, and a fierce player. At one point, she stopped the game to call us over. She explained why we need three types of serves. Three types?! I knew I needed to practice my serve, but yikes. As I stepped back into position, I laughed to my partner, yeah, I’m just trying to get it over the net. I overcame potential self-judgment with humor. Such a victory.

I’ve given up joy so often in my life. I’ve done it to be more skilled, to be a high achiever, to meet or exceed job expectations, to do what I thought others wanted, to be “the best,”— whatever. Doing so sacrificed my own center, my sovereignty, and my enjoyment of life.

Not any more. Now, I’m practicing the key—the same one I used as a teacher. In education, you learn to pace the student to stretch, but not break. When I (as the student) lose the wonder, mystery, or joy, then learning becomes drudgery.

Pacing Yourself for Fun

So I’ve decided to pace myself for fun. I practice this in my work, too. I want to sustain the joy.

If we need to learn, or to live, at a slower pace than world-spin, let’s do it! Choosing to align with our heartbeat rather than the collective pulse increases our delight, our sense of awe, and our gratitude.

If we choose to sacrifice fun, at least we can do so purposefully.  

I’ll understand if some players don’t want me as a pickleball partner. But, honestly, I’m going to get so much better by encouraging myself to enjoy the process, one shot at a time.

Note: Since writing this blog, I have improved quite a bit by taking my own advice. 😀

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Activate Your Highest Vision, Part 1

by Emma Laurence

This is part one in a blog series on how to activate the highest vision of your life.

If the highest and best vision for your life (or your business) were to be fully realized now, what would it look like?

Watch how this question opens a door to the specific dream currently living in your imagination. Be brave. Enter this new room by letting yourself explore the sights, sounds, and feelings of your highest ideal or greatest passion, fully realized.

Now, you have full permission to be creative in this process. Write or paint your vision, sing or dance it. For creative people, even the sky isn’t a limit—and dreams do come true.

How dreams come true is the focus of this blog series. So, let’s begin.

If You Can Picture It, It’s Here Now

If you’re ready to enjoy the freedom and accept the responsibility of creating your own world, there’s a key principle to embody:

The present moment is the only one in which dreams are made or broken.

Similarly, fears are overcome or given into in this moment. Life is either fully lived or denied—one moment at a time.

So, how does this principle play out when activating your vision?

If you can picture what you’d love to create, it already exists now. If you can imagine the sights, sounds, and feelings, it’s already here. You might say, yeah, but it’s just in my imagination. True. And which, of all the inventions in human history, hasn’t first begun in someone’s imagination?

Therefore, holding the vision in this moment of what you believe possible means it already exists somewhere. Think of it as dwelling in a parallel universe, if you like. Or, in “the future,” if that helps. Don’t let the mind get too concerned about where or when. Just be willing to entertain the possibility that your vision is, relatively speaking, real.

How ‘Activate Your Highest Vision’ Works

The word activate is powerful. It involves action, here and now, that brings the power of potential into reality.

Let’s take a simple example. You go hiking with friends, and at the summit, you all lean in for a selfie. And you’re not surprised when, less than a second later, you’re looking at that same image on your screen.

The activation of a dream works the same way. It just takes more time.

For example, back up to when you first decide you want to go hiking. You have a vision of you, your dog, and a couple of friends piling into your Honda, heading out of town on Saturday morning. You can see the group hitting the trailhead, laughing as you walk up the path, stopping to snack at a waterfall, and enjoying an amazing landscape view at the top.

Wouldn’t that be fun? Yes! You can almost feel that joy right now.

While it may take days, and certain preparations, for you to have the hiking experience, you’ve actually set up the image in your mind in much the same way as you used your phone.

So, frame the shot, do the work—image realized.

What Form Does ‘Activate Your Highest Vision’ Take?

The real question most people bring to coaching when they want to activate their vision is, how will this take shape in my everyday life?

Honestly, by the time a client gets to me, the manifestation or how is already taking form. It’s happening! When you’re in transition, it’s difficult to get the overview. But, the beginnings of a new life are already present—or you wouldn’t even be seeking help to make a change.

So, what’s already showing up? And, how will your dream take form in daily life?

The rest of the blogs in this series will address the form of your journey. I’ve identified five different rhythms that you naturally use to activate your highest and best—without even realizing you’re doing it! These rhythms are like forms in motion.

Learning your natural rhythm is a huge gift! You get to relax. You recognize your own genius. And you gain confidence to bring your vision into physical reality, one action at a time.

So, keep reading! See if one of the rhythms—linear, cyclical, serpentine, figure 8, or universal—makes sense for you. You can stop “reaching to achieve” your goal. Instead, begin to activate your highest vision, now.

Photo by Peter Conlan on Unsplash

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Your ‘Gold Butterfly’ Life Message?

by Emma Laurence

Life sends me messages day and night. Slowly, I’ve begun to learn the unique language in which life speaks to my heart. I help my clients to do the same. When I notice a life message that’s right in front of them, I ask a follow up question. Often, they’ve missed a big clue to their urgent concern or challenge. This gift, tailored to each individual, is what I’m now calling, a ‘gold butterfly.’ Here’s why:

The Set Up

My husband and I had new carpet installed in our small living room. It’s the only downstairs space that’s carpeted, and we decided to test out this room before upgrading the whole upstairs.

Thank God we did! The outgassing from one room of new carpeting made all of us (husband, wife, and cat) sick. We had headaches. My body went into fight-or-flight and would tremble if I went downstairs. Our cat was hangdog.

Bit by bit, we found ways to address the troublesome toxic fumes. Besides opening windows and wedging in an outwards-blowing fan, we swept baking soda into the fibers to absorb odors. We vacuumed vigorously, and even borrowed a second air purifier to run both 24/7.

Life Message

At one point, I had to stay overnight with friends to take a break from the fumes. That night, I asked what life was trying to teach me about outgassing. I became the curious explorer: what were these toxic fumes teaching me about my own state of mind?

Was it an uncomfortable sleeping night? Yep. But by morning I had an answer. I needed to take more responsibility for an embarrassing habit. Without fully realizing it, I’d been engaging in gossip in two ways.

First, I’d been listening to a neighbor complain and blame others for a problem in her life. I was trying to be a compassionate listener, but every time we met, she got into a bad groove. So, I was not helping her (or me) by providing a listening ear.

Second, I’d been expressing negative opinions about a group of people whose behavior outraged me.  My inner critic had been outgassing.

I once heard a spiritual teacher describe gossip as poison. Just poison. He warned against indulging this habit or even being around those who do.

The Gold Butterfly

That morning at my friend’s house, I felt a bit vulnerable and disappointed in myself. How had I not caught this before life had to send such a dramatic message? I didn’t judge or punish myself as I’ve done in the past. But I did feel a little down.

Then, when I got out of bed, I discovered a gold butterfly ornament that I’d apparently been lying on all night. I had no idea where it came from—and neither did my friends! Though they recognized the butterfly as part of their collection, they couldn’t imagine how it got into the sheets of the guest bed.

For me, this gift required little interpretation. The butterfly was me, choosing a higher level of refinement. This life message confirmed that I was on the right track. The gold butterfly was a sweet reminder to be kind to myself as I transformed.

The Practical Remedy

Life always answers my questions in a practical sense, too. What was I learning in physical terms? That next day, my husband and I discovered a mineral called zeolite.  Among other things, it’s used for water treatment in aquariums, odor absorption in cat litter boxes, and toxic gas elimination in carpets.

When the zeolite arrived, we spread it on the carpet, worked it into the fibers, and waited an hour. With intensive vacuuming, 80-90% of the problem resolved.

[Note: For those of you who chant as part of your spiritual practice, you’ll get a laugh that I started chanting zeolite even before the product arrived. The word had special meaning for me. I wanted to experiment with cleaning up mental outgassing, and it worked!]

Your Tailor-Made Message?

Could a life message of support, healing, or encouragement be right in front of you now as you navigate your daily stressors? What might that be?

Any symbol, image, or sound that grabs our attention can be a gift just waiting to be received. Often, I find it’s best to decode through the heart rather than the mind. The mind can endlessly interpret, but the heart recognizes love instantly.

More about that in a future post. Meanwhile, let me know if you discover a gold butterfly in your midst.

Photo by Melanie Morales on Unsplash

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Making Life Easier

by Emma Laurence

Teaching preschool music years ago, I learned from the pros that success for a pre-K classroom is all about the transitions. 

Drop off time.  Play time.  Snack time.  Nap time.  When the adults prepared activity stations in advance and gently guided the little ones’ attention, blending from one to the next, there were a lot fewer tears. 

I don’t need to tell you that this has been one challenging year.  Lots of losses and changes—a world in profound transition.  

Have you found yourself slowing down and tending that space between? As my husband recently advised me, “let the river carry you for a while.”

Zoey’s Changing World

One morning, our cat Zoey jumped up on the bed to nestle into my side.  She likes my arm around her body so she’s all snuggled in.  When I’m wearing short sleeves, she’ll nuzzle the inside of my elbow and even try to suckle at my skin.

Zoey was taken from her mom at six weeks—too young for a kitten.  When we got her at a year old, we were warned of her habit and history. 

But it’s cold in Minnesota now, so I’m in long-sleeved pajamas.  Nuzzling her nose into my elbow doesn’t quite satisfy the same way.  What’s a cat to do?

I thought about how hard it must be for her to keep wanting her mom and that particular bond of food, safety and love.  Time has marched on.  

She has human parents now who love her differently.  Food comes in a bowl.  There’s still safety in closeness, but love is scratching under the chin or behind the ears, stroking her fur with a human hand.   Pretty different.

Then, I wondered.  How often does the form of love change in our own lives while we struggle to keep up? 

Love Shifts Form

The most dramatic example comes when someone we love leaves this earthly world.  We may have been used to years of daily contact.  We may miss that soul terribly, that specific way of being close.

For example, a dear friend’s beautiful greyhound suddenly collapsed a couple of months ago.  A sweet new dog came into her life sooner than expected, requiring her to draw on compassion, patience and trust in transitioning to a new family.

The same is true for other endings—relationship break ups, losses of friendships or homes, of jobs or careers, or heartfelt dreams.  Qualities like gentleness and gratitude provide buffers to make the shift easier.

Are We All in Pre-school?

What if a teaching force in the universe smooths our way in everyday life like a good preschool teacher?  If we look, we may be surprised to see that experiences have been prepared just for us—including time for rest, nourishment and creativity.  Trusting and following that rhythm eases our way. 

Even during a global shift, we can allow time and space in our personal universe for transitions.  Consider the daily reminder of the sunrise that pales our sky slowly from darkness to color to brighter light.

Photo by Jonas Vincent on Unsplash

*If you know someone who might benefit from reading this story, please do pass it along. Thank you!

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Shifting to the Core

by Emma Laurence

If you’re like me, you’ve spent a lot of time with your thoughts.  At times, they’ve crowded the inner landscape to such a degree that you’ve exhausted yourself, become confused and frustrated, and had a hard time sleeping.  They can be of a negative nature or an excitable one; the impact on the nervous system seems similar.

The focus on thoughts in our world today—and plenty of words to describe them that get rehashed on media outlets—creates a loop pattern.  Certain ideas or beliefs run and re-run until a groove settles in that can then be difficult to undo.  Add to this that children take on the patterns in their home, society and culture of origin, and it’s pretty hard to tell which voice inside our heads is truly our own, if we bother to ask.

I have a steel-trap sort of mind that won’t let go.  It gets bored easily, wants to “figure out” everything, and insists it’s at the top of my identity’s food chain. 

I’m also blessed and challenged with a sensitive, empathic, easily hurt emotional heart that I’ve learned to protect and tend.

Yet beyond mind and heart lies a territory that we humans must explore if we’re to evolve.  At the core of any living being is a true spiritual intention that may or may not make sense to the mind and emotions. 

The core intention serves all life (within and without) from a higher perspective that embraces everything below. It’s the truth behind what we do. Like unconditional love, this core can resonate as respect, compassion, charity, or even bonds of brotherhood. It can express itself in any creative form.

I like the metaphor of the shinbashira—the central pillar of a pagoda’s construction that’s built to be movable, like the flexible spine of the human body. The shinbashira is part of what makes these beautiful, sacred structures earthquake resistant.

I also love the French word for heart, coeur, which is closer to the English word core.

The shift to living each day from a central pillar often follows a life-changing event wherein we’ve been “shaken to the core.” Paradigms reverse and perspectives expand. We become aware of a bigger picture in which we’re part of a living, breathing whole.

Priorities flip. Smaller annoyances shrink in importance as we recommit to the love in our lives (people, places, actions, arts) that make life worth living.

The transition is the tough part. We may find it difficult to calm the mind and heart enough to feel our shinbashira or hear our core truth.  Our faith or trust may appear intermittent as we work at realigning with a new way of being.

The current pandemic is more than an earthquake whose aftershocks we will feel for an indefinite length of time.  It’s the best opportunity we have for contacting our core. We’ve been given the chance to ground in our essential (coeur) intention, one that may hold a surprising, primal message awaiting our discovery.

Photo by Francesco Ungaro from Pexels

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The Unseen Positive

by Emma Laurence

At my first Minnesota Astronomical Society (MAS) online meeting, I found the request to join without video or sound suitably funny.  Wow, I thought, these guys really do crave darkness! 

Of course, it’s what they discover in the darkness that makes stargazing so engaging.  During the call, I learned where and when to look for the “Golden Handle” on the moon.  The Bay of Rainbows (Sinus Iridum) is a lava-flooded impact basin measuring 162 miles wide and ringed by the Jura Mountains.  When the mountains are illuminated just so, they appear as a bright arc in front of the still darkened bay.

This play of light effect is nicknamed the “Golden Handle,“ and it’s visible once a month, four days before a full moon. Look closely at the photo above and you’ll see a curved feature at the top right, jutting up along the line between light and dark. 

As astrophotographers in the group talked technology and equipment, my mind drifted back to a conversation with a friend over the weekend.  She’d remarked on the common usage of the term “unseen negative.” Then she asked, what about the “unseen positive“?

I began to wonder what hidden forces are at work even now to assist us in our personal missions on earth and to guide us to the best possible future.  We’re in a time of fear, change, and uncertainty.  Is it possible to see what’s right in front of us, working for our benefit?  Or, at the least, trust the unfoldment of an unseen positive?

So much is unseen.  When we face life’s challenges, we can feel like we’re in the dark.  It’s easy to be fearful of an imagined negative outcome.  Pretending to not feel fear is simply a spiritual bypass.  We may want to get around the vulnerability of human emotions, but they will be stored somewhere in the psyche, or the body, if denied.  

So, what about looking more deeply into this metaphorical night sky to gain perspective and awe?  Astronomers know how to do this in a literal sense.  They share the excitement of sightings and photos because their world is a wide-open view to points of light, or heavenly bodies, within the darkness.

If we open the aperture of our heart, though, I’ll bet we can discover the unseen positive. How often have we witnessed surprising support from Life itself simply because we were looking more closely, calmly or widely, with an eye for beauty and grace?

Calm presence embraces fear and beauty, both.  It’s a divine paradox. 

I hope to catch sight of the Bay of Rainbows and the Golden Handle at the end of this month.  The sky, moon, bay and mountains already exist as an unseen, awaiting my astronomy binoculars.  I may feel like I’ve come upon a miracle when I experience it personally. And I may be even further inspired by the vast darkness beyond.

Photo by Peter Lowenstein

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What Brings You Joy?

by Emma Laurence

My husband and I anticipated the joy kittens would bring to our home.  The vet was 90% sure our newly adopted cat was pregnant.  And though she couldn’t feel individual kittens, she predicted we’d have a brood in three weeks.

Then, a turn of events.  Our cat began behaving like she was in heat.  Hmmm, we thought.  What about the other 10%?

After a few days of this behavior, we called the vet to chat.  She agreed that she’d misread the swollen belly as pregnancy rather than hormonal build up to estrus.

Isn’t it a curious moment when, having planned for one outcome, Life takes a 180 degree turn?  I felt sad as I disassembled the dream of playfulness, cuteness and laughter filling our home. 

This wasn’t a severe disappointment, but the process seems to be the same for releasing human emotions.  Grief, felt at various depths, eventually gives way to acceptance.  Life does go on.

A younger version of me would have spent a lot of time analyzing the possible reasons—human or divine—for this abrupt change.  I might have wondered how I, and the vet, made such a mistake.  More likely, I’d have questioned what Life was trying to teach me about the build up and dashing of expectations, or about investing in a specific future.

Present-day me moved through that stage quickly.  Instead, I watched images of a future with kittens dissolve.  I didn’t dwell on blame or questions.  I gave thanks for our cat, Zoey, in our lives and let it be.  I let the sadness be, too.

The next day, a wise friend happened to ask, what are you doing right now in your life to bring you joy?  Great question.  I had to admit I wasn’t being proactive.  I was slumping, waiting for something outside me (like a houseful of kittens?) to bring me joy. 

She then shared a technique she invented to practice wellness.  She makes a list of things that her bring joy and does one an hour.  It might be as simple as listening to a particular song, or making soup, or journaling.

I loved this idea and started right away doing small things to inspire joy.  I drove by the llama farm to catch a glimpse of the newborns, took a walk in the sunlight, and listened to “Gabriel’s Oboe” performed by Henrik Chaim Goldschmidt.                        

Soon, I felt much lighter.

Now, I don’t expect to live in a joyful place all the time.  I don’t even believe that’s the goal.  But I do need a balance in tough times. 

I wonder, what might make your list?

Joy lives inside us.  Though prompted by people, animals, places or things, the qualitative experience we call joy is inward.  It’s our choice when to reach for that ever-present state and how to prompt an opening heart. 

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

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