Do you need the will to do something? Do you want to get out of your negative rut? Well...learning about YELLOW will give you the answers. Join me in this short video for a brief tip about YELLOW ***Take note that the special offer mentioned in this video is no longer for Color Your WORLD, but for Color Your LIFE! Click here to see programs listed on my Work With Me page.*** By: Betsy Karp,
The COLOUR COACH
Have a COLORFUL Day!
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 Written by: Edwige Gilbert,
Author of the “Fresh Start Promise”
Dale Carnegie once said, “Fear does not exist anywhere but in our mind.”
Let’s consider this: If fear is just a figment of our imagination and does not exist anywhere else, how can we explain the devastating impact fear has on our health and in our lives?
I may have an answer for you. You see fear, unlike any other emotion, has a vital and basic function, which is to warn us against physical and emotional danger. To accomplish this purpose, fear activates the fight or flight response releasing toxic chemicals in our brain such as adrenaline. I can understand how useful this function may have been thousands of years ago, to warn the poor cavemen to fly or fight for their lives when attacked by a bear. But today, this function seems obsolete and yet, we are still experiencing its full impact. For example, we might just be giving a speech or showing up for an interview and all of a sudden we notice our heart pounding in our chest and our palms getting sweaty, while feeling panicky and confused.
I have a difficult time accepting that just because we are afraid, all of this can happen. Especially when I realize that practically everything we do in our lives is tinted with fear. As you already know, the list of fear situations is nearly endless: fear of sickness, poverty, rejection, the fear of aging, loneliness, and the fear of failure or even success.
What are we to do? Accept that we are prisoners of fear and allow it to dominate our lives and take away our freedom and joie de vivre?
I don’t think so and I hope you feel the way I do.
In the name of our liberation from the tyranny of our fears, I propose 3 steps that we can take to help us.
Step 1: Make fear your friend
What does that mean? Since we cannot escape or hide from it, why not choose to have fear as your companion on your new journey? After all, fear is just warning you that you are going through changes, and dealing with a new situation can be uncomfortable. Fear can also force us to be brave and develop strength of character. Finally, fear, when you are able to conquer it, can bring you such a sense of accomplishment, greater self-esteem and self-confidence.
To make this concept more alive, I propose that you imagine that you are a snake charmer from India wearing a saffron colored turban, sitting in a crossed legged position learning to tame the Cobra of fear, while hypnotizing him with the intoxicating music of the Pungi (a native bamboo wind instrument).
Step 2: Change your focus
Stop focusing on being afraid and start focusing on your desired outcome. It is believed that what you focus on expands and becomes your reality. Decide to focus on what you want to accomplish. Picture yourself having reached your goal feeling confident and victorious.
When dealing with a challenging situation, you can imagine yourself as a warrior, such as King Arthur if you are a man or Xena the warrior princess if you are a woman, holding a sword of fearlessness and wearing an armor of white light, protecting you from all fear and negativity.
Step 3: Be your inner coach
We all have a tendency to be too critical and judgmental about ourselves. We often feel deep down that we are not good enough. We secretly search for perfection, which creates a lot of pressure, fear and anxiety. What if we chose to be more loving and accepting of ourselves and decided to adopt the language of the heart which would ban the “cannot” and the “should’s,” and instead, embracing positive and empowering words?
To create this positive experience, bring your arms up in the air and declare, “Victory to me, Victory is mine” as you place a big smile on your face for appreciation and gratitude of this joyful moment.
I hope you will use these 3 steps on your journey of life. And everyday remember to welcome fear and make it your friend, to keep your mind focused on the wonderful things you desire to achieve in your life and most importantly, to stay loving, encouraging and supportive.
I would like to leave you with a final thought by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who once said, “He who is not every day conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”
Merci,
Edwige
 Written by: Katie Cohen
Everybody expects their first kiss to be this monumental moment when gravity miraculously stops and you find yourself floating above the ground and gasping for air. Who even decided that it was supposed to be like that? I never understood the appeal.
Getting swept off your feet inevitably ends in a painful fall and having your breath taken away is a guaranteed trip to the emergency room. For a close friend of mine, it literally was a trip to the hospital, but not because she was gasping for air. Rather, because she woke up the next morning with a small bump on her lip after some eighth-grade stud took her kissing virginity. When her dermatologist quickly diagnosed this nasty little thing as a flat wart, my friend was sent home with a very strong cream to apply on the affected area before bedtime.
Less than 24 hours later, I received a call from a panicking teenager who insisted that her lips had tripled in size. When I entered my friend’s apartment with a sympathy tub of rocky road ice cream, and got my first glimpse of her blowfish lips, I realized that her mini tantrum was completely justified.
Another week went by, and the lip swelling only got worse, and was eventually accompanied by spiking. It was discovered that the severe reactions were side effects from the cream that was being used to treat the flat wart, which turned out to be a pimple according to the results of the biopsy. This cream that destroyed my friends mucosal membrane (particularly her lips) and compromised her good health is now recognized as extremely hazardous to the human body and is prescribed with great caution by doctors. More recent medical research has shown that the strong concentration of harmful chemicals in the formula can be “criminally dangerous” when applied to specific areas.
Unfortunately, so many of the ingredients in body and skincare products we use daily contain ingredients that are identical to those in the cream that my friend applied to her “wart”. Some of them are Paraben based, meaning they contain chemicals like Methylparaben, Propylparaben, IIsoparaben, Butylparaben. Phthalates are additional chemicals that should be avoided at all costs. It is outrageous that there are only minimal efforts made to expose the important truths behind the products we use, and even more astonishing that the majority of the products do more harm to us than they do good.
Our skin is a major player in our first line of defense, constantly fighting off harmful bacteria and toxins that our bodies come into contact with every day. So while we all want soft, clear, and youthful looking skin, we sometimes fail to remember that keeping our skin healthy has greater benefits than those at the aesthetic level! It is important to treat it with the proper care that it deserves by introducing treatments into our cleansing regiments that keep our skin clean without a toxic solution. It is counterproductive to clean your face with products that only contaminate your skin more in the end!
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 Written by: Katie Cohen
 Written by: Steven M. Goldsmith
Isn't it amazing how we create stories in our lives and hold onto them? We create stories about situations and relate to those stories rather than what actually happened. And if you pay close enough attention, you'll notice that that's how you relate to people as well...to your story about them rather than who they are. Wouldn't this world be a better place if we had authentic relationships instead?
How do you let go of your stories of people and situations? You stay present; you catch yourself in the act. Try that next time you talk to someone. Look at them and pay attention to the voices that arise in your head. What you'll notice is that your story about them will come up: what they did or didn't do to you, what they're wearing, who you think they are in the world, what other people think of them, if you think they are ugly or pretty, so on and so forth. Do you really think you are relating to them with all this noise in the background? You can’t. It’s impossible.
We create so many stories about people, places and objects that we see everything through a filter. It’s like those Claritin commercials: the image on TV is ever so blurry until the person has taken Claritin, and then the image is crystal clear. Think of how much brighter things would be if we saw them for what they were. Think of how much more colorful nature would be, how much better food would taste, how much more you’d be able to actually hear what people were saying. It would be a world through a crystal clear lens. You would free yourself from the prison of your mind and truly experience life!
It’s time to start relating to each other this way or you will miss our lives completely. Get out of your head, catch yourself in your story and commit to letting go of the labels and words associated with everything. Stay present and enjoy life. Living in the world of what IS instead of the world of LANGUAGE is so much more exciting. It’s a life without fear (the fears that you’ve created that don’t really exist anyway). Everyone deserves a life like that. It’s called freedom! It’s called presence. It’s called LIFE!
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 Written by: Betsy Karp
"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity."
- Gilda Radner
Wouldn’t it be so much easier if we all just let go and tried not to control the way we wanted our lives to turn out? I think it would. Lately I have just lived in the moment, being present and being me. I have never felt better. I don’t know the outcome of anything in my life right now--love, career, where I will end up--but I have faith in me and the choices I am making for myself. For the first time in a very long time, I can honestly say I am not trying to control anything. I am just letting life unfold in front of my very eyes. I’m actually a little surprised how I am enjoying all of this. Just being is pretty cool, if you allow it.
Yes, it’s important to have a plan and set some good intentions for what you want to achieve, but then you must have faith in yourself and the Universe, surrendering it all. The power of the universe is magical and miracles happen if you allow it. Actually miracles and opportunities are waiting for us everyday. We are the one’s that must open it up and let it happen. Where are you right now in your life? Are you controlling it or letting it go?
Try and let go and see what opens up for you. Step into uncertainty and look at it as a new adventure. Bring back the kid in you and just enjoy your life a little. Relax, let go, take a walk, do something kind for someone else, wear the color yellow and be sunny and cheerful. Bring positivity back in your life. A shift in perception is all you need to do this. If you lighten up and let go I bet you will be magically surprised as to what happens. Isn’t it time you lived your life with passion and purpose, expressing all you that you want and desire?
Make uncertainty your best friend. Be okay with not knowing what is going to happen, and let the miracles of life show you what it has in store for you. I would love to hear about all of those miracles.
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Hugs,
Betsy Karp,
Founder of i adore me
 Written by: Jacqueline Stahl
On the second morning of the New Year I woke up at 5:58 am and turned off my iPhone alarm, set for 6:10am. I listened to my husband breathing and my dog Shadow's breathing from across the room. I listened deeper and heard the faint sound of the television, so I knew my daughter must have fallen asleep on the couch. I closed my eyes and listened to my thoughts to see if they were any different from my 2012 thoughts.
They were.
I didn't start to lose myself in the obsessive mental lists of: “should I take a 6:30 cycle class or meditate in the living room before walking Shadow? Did I empty the dishwasher? When is my Amex bill due? I didn't look at my iCalendar or check my emails or text messages.” I didn't project any catastrophes or doubts in myself.
I kept my eyes closed and stayed with the stillness. I felt the warmth of my pillow and comforter. When I watched my thoughts fast forward to 2015 and then to 7:45 am, I pressed PAUSE and smiled quietly to myself. All I have, all I need and all I want is right here. As I savored the last few minutes of repose, I thought of what I could do to make the world a little better this year. How could I contribute?
My mornings will be different and perhaps everyone should try to begin their days with a different intention.
Start each day with a positive intention and let it guide your day and your practice, getting really clear about your motivations and how your love is the most powerful vehicle in the world. Act for the good of others. Break a bad habit and this includes all the senseless mind chatter that causes hours of anxiety.
Letting go of perfection and anger can create a shift and make a subtle and profound difference in all of our lives.
Happy New Year!
“To see far is one thing; going there is another.”
--Brancusi
Love and Light,
Jacqueline Stahl
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 Written by: Betsy Karp
It’s Christmas Eve and I hope you are all enjoying some wonderful eggnog, family, friends and holiday cheer. Tis the season to be jolly. Sing some carols and stay present…and enjoy the presents (pun intended).
If you get stressed out, wondering if you are giving the right gift, if you are drinking and eating too much or just being around “too much” family, take a minute for yourself and breathe. Let go and enjoy. Whatever will be will be.
Dress in something fun and festive. Wear red, green or hot pink. Red promotes passion, energy and confidence. It helps you to feel powerful within yourself. Green will help open your heart, letting you feel love and abundance. Hot Pink is playful and fun. It makes you feel like a child all over again.
Enjoy yourself. It’s Christmas. Focus on all the love that surrounds you instead of the problems that arise. I hope this holiday brings you lots of peace in your heart. Wishing you all lots of love and a great BIG holiday hug.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
You can never have enough hugs and kisses!
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Hugs,
Betsy Karp,
Founder of i adore me
 Written by: Steven M. Goldsmith
All of life is about accepting change and letting go. We lose loved ones, people move away, the elderly pass on, flowers perish and trees fall. We have pets that touch our hearts and leave us with grieving sadness. We have Grandparents who make us feel special, then move onto a higher plane leaving us feeling empty. But we don’t have to feel sad or empty. Now I’m not saying it doesn’t hurt and it isn’t sad. Of course it is. But it is also the natural progression of life and it benefits us more to accept it, breathe and move on. As Francois de la Rochefoucauld so eloquently put it, “The only thing constant in life is change.”
Now, I have been struggling with what I want out of life lately. I’ve come to a fork in the road and I’m not quite sure which way to go. It’s scary and I often don’t want to make a choice…I want things to be as I have always expected them to be and have been used to. But the universe has a different plan…Change!
I am an actor by trade but have been on the fence of whether or not I want to do it anymore. I’ve had some challenging auditions lately and have been putting a lot of pressure on myself. The pressure naturally only makes it worse, but I haven’t figured out how to “let go” of that pressure yet. This was really magnified the other day when I had a pretty bad audition; over the days that followed, I kept beating myself up for it. I held on with such ferocity, as if I might die without the self-inflicted abuse.
I had no idea how to take my mind off of…well…my mind, so I took myself on a date to see “The Life of Pi.” At first I was cynical and wasn’t enjoying it, but once I relaxed and put my focus on the movie instead of my most recent “failure,” I was drawn in. But nothing hit me quite like the quote at the end of the movie: “All of life is an act of letting go, but what hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye” (now what he meant by “not taking a moment to say goodbye” might have been one thing, but I interpreted it to stand for many different situations. It can also stand for forgiveness).
This knocked me over the head, smacked me in the face and jolted me out of my negativity. “All of life is an act of letting go…” I was holding onto this terrible audition and feeling like a failure, telling myself over and over again that I would never be great and that I destroyed chances I may never again get. Holding onto this thought, at the time, was akin to not being able to let one off of life support…I couldn’t say goodbye to it.
Now I realize I was being overly dramatic, but in that moment, that was how I was feeling: hopeless, sad, grieving and lost. I couldn’t let go of my “story.” But if I just “let go” and allowed myself to “say goodbye,” it would be done. It wasn’t still happening to me. The audition wasn’t an endless torture in a chamber of horrifying tools. The horrifying tools were my thoughts and the chamber was my mind. It wasn’t still happening, yet I kept playing it over and over and over and over again in my mind like someone was holding a gun to my head saying, “YOU MUST FEEL SHAME AND SADNESS FOR WHAT YOU HAVE DONE.” And what for?
I’ve been so unsure of my current path as a performer, being faced with this fork in the road of possibly leaving the business and starting over, that I put an exorbitant amount of pressure on this one audition to prove to me that I was “supposed” to stay in the business. It proved to be the opposite. And maybe it was a nudge to say, “keep fighting, stay the course and don’t give up”; who knows. That’s not the point. The point is to learn to let go, say goodbye (albeit, grieve a little to feel the loss so it can be fully released) and go with the flow. Accept the natural progression of life (mistakes and all), accept change and move forward, not backward.
Yes, many horrific and tragic things happen in this world--things far worse than a botched audition--but once it has happened, there’s nothing we can do to change it. We can’t go back in time to “fix” or “stop” it from happening. Once it’s done it’s done, and the only thing that seemingly keeps it going is the mind.
A fork in the road, a bad audition, a loved one passing on, etc… These are things that we’re not meant to hold onto, but we tend to anyway. We do so because it’s hard to be faced with failure and loss. It leads to change, which leads to a different direction and eventually toward a new beginning.
Change is a gift that gives us a chance to release old hurts, learn something new, discover something great and start with something fresh. Who would we be if we stayed in the present and accepted the constant change in the world and in our lives? What wouldn’t we miss? What would we give ourselves permission to do? Byron Katie, the author of “The Work,” says that when we examine depression and sadness, the only thing that ever makes us unhappy is our RESISTANCE to WHAT IS. I truly believe that if everyone learned to “let go” and “say goodbye,” we would live a much more rewarding existence and co-existence. Letting go and saying goodbye…bitter though it may feel, sweet it actually is.
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 Written by: David Sussman
Trust. Does it exist in Corporate America?
I sat at lunch today with my mentor, Valerie Coffin. She is a woman who had known me as a young boy, who watched me begin my career in the company I now own, who guided me through some of my most challenging and rewarding times as a corporate executive and who I miss very much since her retirement. She was a leader of people and possessed the unique set of skills required to move our company forward as its President, the position she served for the final five years of her full-time employment with the company.
We caught up, talked about our families and reflected on our past. We always had such a fantastic time working together and our periodic lunches are a highlight of mine. We spoke of the company, identified what remains the same as well as how it has changed. She spent some time pointing out how I have been able to effectively influence the company’s direction. Valerie is pleased to have been an influential part of the leader I have become.
Then we spoke of trust.
She felt blessed throughout her 30+ years with my company. She loved the people she worked with and felt fortunate to have built trusting relationships that transcended the typical employee-employer realm. I did not take for granted that we shared that trust.
She spoke of the fun and success she had as she worked to build the organization with her team. She spoke of her boss Stan, one of the founders of the company. He earned her trust while she, in turn, earned his. Valerie trusted him with her corporate life. All of his employees trusted him this way.
She remembered participating in a “Key Executive” group. Her group-mates spoke of security, trust and employment contracts. They asked her if she had one. She said “No”. She trusted her mentor to take care of her as time went on. She trusted her instincts. She felt safe. They thought she was crazy. They felt she was vulnerable. In typical corporate America, they were right. But they didn’t understand the bond of trust created between her and Stan, her boss/mentor. She spoke of the special qualities she saw in Stan. She remembered how he built similar trust between himself and all of those with whom he employed.
I wonder if this kind of trust is gone in our company; it would make me sad if it was gone. The company is much larger these days and employees are litigious. It is increasingly difficult to “take care of people” without creating liability and dissention among your team. However, it is still very possible to trust and be trusted.
Inside of me is a need to demonstrate the same kind of trust Valerie experienced between herself and Stan. I believe I can do that and have much in common with Stan, my father. I look forward to the responsibility of building or maintaining that trust with the key people in my life. It is a wonderful character trait (both personal and corporate) to emulate.
Valerie has always been taken care of by my father. And now, the least I (and my partners) can do is to continue to show her how valued she was, is and always will be. It feels good to be trusted by Val. It feels good to be trusted by others as well.
 David J. Sussman Esq, CLUSenior Vice President at PFP Services Business Owner, Executive, Entrepreneur, Innovator, Leader and Problem Solver at PFP Serving The Credit Union Industry www.pfpservices.com/officers.html
 Written by: Betsy Karp
Six people, including myself, gathered together at the MOMA to see the film documentary Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present. This movie explores Marina’s quest of staying present. I was drawn in right away, because the film captures an artist’s life. It portrays what it is like to live the daily life of an artist: the love, the devotion, the pain, the torment, the disappointment, the success and the freedom. She describes herself as the "Grandmother of Performance Art."
In Abramovic’s work, she explores the relationship between performer and audience, the limits of the body and the possibilities of the mind. Abramovic’s three-month performance piece at the MOMA is about staying present in the stillness. She sits in a chair with her body upright and there’s an empty chair opposite her. That’s it. Nothing else. There were millions of people that gathered to watch, sitting opposite her, to be part of her performance and the stillness. People cried as they gazed in amazement as well as in disbelief.
What truly got me was how her art and stillness brought out such deep emotion in others. Her stillness was a reflection of those that sat opposite her and encountered her presence. Staying present can have different meanings. What does staying present mean to you?
I have learned over the years to embrace stillness and enjoy the moment while staying present at the same time. All we truly have is the now, this very moment, and we seem to forget that. We would all be much happier if we just lived in the now. There would be less worry, mind chatter and negativity. Worry can drive you mad and half the time we worry for nothing. It’s a time and health killer. Being present and staying in the now forces us to be accepting of what is, good or bad, and this is what you call, “STAYING PRESENT.”
Just this past weekend, someone who I love very much was in deep emotional pain. She was having physical issues that have worn down her beautiful spirit. I held her in my arms as tears rolled down her face. Her tears and pain were so deep and I could feel it all. I held her tight in my arms while consoling, holding and loving her. I then broke her tears and made her laugh asking, “Please tell me how you have the most perfect eyebrows in the world?” ”I don’t,” she replied. She lifted her head and asked, “What can I do to stop this bad feeling?”
“Stay Present,” I replied. “It’s the only way to be. You will feel so much better. Let’s focus right now on what is here. You have your mom and me who love you more than life itself. We are here for you. You are loved and adored. All is good. You are safe. As you focus on the present moment in your life and things begin to shift, you will see that by staying present you can handle the moment and then the next moment will take care of itself.” “Wow. Thank you! I’ve never looked at it that way before. I’m starting to feel better,” she blurted out.
A few days later, I received a text from her saying, “I can’t tell you how happy it made me to see you the other night. I just wanted you to know that I was actually present for the first time today. I’ve been trying to live in the moment like you suggested and it’s really helping. I love you and I am so blessed to have you in my life.”
Staying present is a way of life. It clears away a lot of the pain we put upon ourselves. It amazes me how, when we shift our mindset while staying present, the simplest things in life can be enjoyable and even therapeutic. Being present is a gift. What are you going to do in your life today while staying present?
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Hugs,
Betsy Karp,
Founder of i adore me
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