My Dear Friends,

Hope this finds you enjoying your day or night. There’s one really tall palm tree about a street down — clear skies over L.A. today. The blue Pacific is filling my feelings with happiness and I’m sending those feelings to you.

We’ve been doing a Practicing Presence Webinar for the first time with folks in our certification program and it’s going great. I didn’t know how it would be to see people (six at a time on our computer screens) as we worked together, wondered how hard the technology would be to deal with (I’m not a digital native). It’s turned out to be really easy and incredibly fun - I feel like everyone is in my home with me and I’m at their place.

Just yesterday, something became clear to me that I’d never known about myself. I’ve had a lot of difficulties with time, mainly:

fear there isn’t enough time

This led to:

fear to schedule events

fear I’ll run out of time

fear I won’t get things done in a timely fashion

fear I can’t have what I want or do what I want due to lack of time

fear that if I’m careful with my time, people will feel hurt because I’m not with them

Doing TAT in our webinar, we all put our attention on something silently for a while to see what comes up. This came up for me in relation to what keeps me from being present with my family. In the middle of doing the Steps, I realized that fear of time = fear of Dad. I had never known that. I’d never realized that I used being "off" or "too busy" or "not on time" as a way not to be where he was when he was alive. It was a way to keep distance and try to protect myself.

Wow! It felt great for that to clear up. Within a few minutes of the end of the call, I was scheduling important segments of my work day for each week and feeling great about it. It’s been easy today to be where I said I’d be when I said I’d be there.

I guess what I really want you to know is that the power of working in a group can make a big open place where changes easily happen and realizations easily occur. It’s like that with TAT anyway, but it’s much more so in a group.

People have told us over the last week that they’d like to do the Connecting With Ease & Communicating Who We Are teleseminar, but they couldn’t attend every day. So we’ve made it so that you can attend one, two, three or four days. The teleseminar will take place March 29, 30, 31 and April 1 from 12:30 to 2:00pm PDT (19:30 - 1:00 UTC).

Here’s what we’ll do each session:

• Session 1 - Identifying our unique values and gifts and clearing what’s in the way of speaking and sharing them
• Session 2 - Clearing what’s in the way of allowing and accepting others seeing us for who we are, including all our values and gifts
• Session 3 - Clearing whatever gets in the way of heart-to-heart connecting — allowing and accepting us to see each other for who we are, including our unique values and gifts
• Session 4 - Clearing whatever gets in the way of sharing ourselves live and in person, over the phone, by emails or any situation

Each hour and a half session is $55, or you can sign up for all four and save $45. Just click here to register.

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Here’s a reminder that you have until the 29th to register for the Seven Keys to Simple Presence workshop. I’d love to share the depth and beauty of this retreat with you. You can read more about it and register here .

The other day, I decided to go to the website and read through the stories there again. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy them! Here are excerpts from a couple. Just click on the link if you’d like to read the whole story.

My name is Robert, I’m 21 and live in Austria.

A friend once asked me to tell you my story, because the consequent usage of TAT twisted my life totally upside down - from destruction, fear and anger to love.

TAT changed the way I feel and the way I think. It changed the way I talk, the way I look and it made me healthier. One thing that TAT isn’t able to improve is my English abilities. I just hope everything is understandable. I now have the courage to send this text to you with all its taints - thanks to TAT again.

Well, it all started about one and a half years ago. At that time I was one of the persons who needed to put the weaker ones down to feel good. I always categorized others either above or below me and treated them accordingly. I always played the tough guy, but everybody who knew me better knew that I was just full of fear. Don’t get me wrong; I wasn’t a bully. My approach was subtle and psychological. I was good at living at the expense of the weak and using my energy to serve the stronger. But there always was a part of me whispering "This is not who you want to be…."

[Click here to read the rest of Robert's story.]

I thank you so much, Tapas, for your lifework TAT. I have no idea what my life would look like today if you didn’t offer that little free workbook.

With all my love,
Robert

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This next story was sent in by TAT Trainer Velma Alford .

TAT helped me recover from traumatic experiences of childhood sexual abuse by my father. TAT was one of the many modalities that I partnered with to help me heal emotionally.

Here is one of my most powerful experiences with TAT…

Several years ago, my father was in the hospital suffering with a diseased heart. The night of his passing, I truly did not feel like I was able to honestly and with integrity be physically present with him and my family. I prayed and did TAT and found that indeed I would be most loving and most compassionate for his process by staying home, in my room, lighting candles, playing soft gentle music, and talking with him as he transitioned thru this life. I spent a lot of that time making a blessing card/ bookmarker for him too. My sisters and brothers kept calling…you still have time to make it, you could be here, are you sure you want to do this this way? I never felt more sure, more filled with unconditional love for him, for our relationship, and for my gift of offering peace to his process.

[Click here to read the rest of Velma's story.]

I have no regrets of that night, I know that I was able to clear the emotional boulders of my relationship with him, to be able to see where my most reverent loving place would be. I know that I was exactly where I could be of the greatest service in that moment. TAT was a huge source of that strength and clarity for me.

Velma

My best wishes for your health and happiness.

Love,
Tapas

P.S. The teleclass starts Monday. Click here to register .

Dear Friends,

I hope you’re having a wonderful winter (or summer) season with family and friends.

Here’s a way to use TAT that I think sounds fun and very effective. I’m going to try it on myself. If you try it and want to let us know how it went for you, write in to our stories page here .

I’ve been using TAT for over a year and am filled with gratitude to the universe for bringing it to me. I’ve brought up, acknowledged and healed an incredible amount of emotions that seemed insurmountable – a huge bowl of spaghetti was how my life looked at one time.

Last week I was working on another element of my childhood abuse and a friend suggested that I find a photo of myself at that age and keep it near to me - in my bra next to my heart, under my pillow at night etc., continually reassuring, loving and talking to her/me. Great idea I thought.

I found a perfect photo and made a few copies to have with me and to put in various places so I would always see one somewhere. The fascinating thing was that as the evening went on, I found myself rejecting the ‘young me’, not wanting to integrate her because of not wanting to feel that pain again, to remember what I lived through, to take on her “dirtiness” etc. and then also feeling guilty for not having protected her, as though I was her mother. That was such a surprise, it really hit me. I thought I’d cleared all of that.

So the next morning, as these feelings had got stronger during the night, I decided to TAT for all of this whilst looking at the photograph of myself……..Wow!!! It was incredibly powerful. It was as if there were no barriers, the reality was right in front of me, no-where to hide. I had a wonderful conversation with that part of myself in a very open, loving and connecting way.

Then part of the way through, I opened my eyes, looked at myself in the photo and felt pure light, acceptance and love flowing between us. It was so beautiful; I’ve got goose pimples just thinking about it. I’m now looking at that same photo with such pride for the me now and for the me then with a big smile on my face.

It felt like such an important & effective step that I decided to try it with other photos – my Mum, my Husband, etc.….next is myself as I am now.

Another healing door has opened and I will make the most of it with the intention that it’s for the good of my higher being and that of the entire universe. I feel so grateful that I have the opportunity of sharing this gift and it’s a very touching and humbling feeling to know that the positive vibrations I’m putting out now are benefiting rather than hurting all around me. It’s more than words can say.

Thank you all.

Vicky

Thanks a lot for sharing this with us, Vicky.

Wishing you joyful holidays and a year full of love and good health.

Love,
Tapas