Author: lauramchugh

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What Really Works to Help Women Get Ahead

Women can only get ahead in work if they stay in the workplace. Sometimes, that is not an easy thing to do. Organizations have institutional barriers to success, especially for women with children. If you are raising a family, whether a woman or a man, the work demands can sometimes make it tough, with demands on your time and attention at times when your children need it most.

CEO Sabrina Parsons of Palo Alto Software, suggests some specific and practical ways that parents who work can be present at work, and also take care of their parenting in a responsible and calm way.

I have long been saying we need organizations to remove institutional barriers. Now Sabrina Parsons gives us ideas, and these are things she herself has tried. Thank you Sabrina. Read the whole article in Business Insider here.

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2014 Mandalas

January – Mandala #1 – Better

February – Mandala #2: Focus
March – Mandala #3: End Chaos Now
April – Mandala #4: Blossom

May – Mandala #5: Pure Joy

June – Mandala #6: And move on.
July – Mandala #7: Hawaii

August – Mandala #8: Electric
September – Mandala #9 – Radiant 
October – Mandala #10 – Picnic
November – Mandala #11: Community Plan
December – Mandala #12: Portal

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Journey Leads to A Small Child

Tonight, I continuing my practicing of shamanic journeying with a like-minded friend who also has skills in this area. We agreed to practice journeying on behalf of each other.  The journey I had revealed a baby in Yvette’s future – a baby I didn’t know will be born in just a few short months. Read on for the full story, and thank you Yvette for agreeing I could share this for learning purposes.

Yvette’s question was about what job she would do that would provide her with the work-life balance she seeks to allow time for her creative side.

In the journey, I saw Yvette transforming from a hectic situation (current) where she is scrambling all the time in work, and which leaves little time and energy for her creativity. She transformed and her situation evolved to one where she was in a relationship with a man who supported them, allowing her to work at what she loves part time. I also saw a female child – age 3-5, cradled in Yvette’s lap. In the vision, the child was her youngest daughter’s child.  I vacillated between thinking the child was her daughter and that this was a past view of Yvette’s life, but the vision kept telling me it was her daughter’s child. I do know Yvette’s daughter in real life, but haven’t had any updates on what she’s been up to for several months.

When I returned from the vision and told Yvette all that I saw, including plenty of information for her about transformation, patience and a graceful relationship that would allow the work-life balance she seeks, I joked that whatever was to happen about this relationship she was in would resolve in 3-5 years, as that was the age of the child in the vision. I was a bit panicked at the thought of all that would have to happen for the vision to come to pass. So much of it is not even close to being in place at this time.

After I told Yvette the journey, she told me her daughter is due to have a baby in just three months! While this was not the focus of the journey, which was to get information for Yvette, it was stunning to me to hear of the baby on the way. Any information I’ve had about Yvette’s daughter would lead me to believe children were far off in her future.  It is true that Yvette will be a grandmother soon, and in just a couple of years, I believe she will be in a relationship that is graceful and peaceful and she will find the work-life balance and time to be creative she seeks.

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Now We’re Talking, Mary

Yesterday, carmaker General Motors announced that they have appointed Mary Barra as their CEO.
A woman running a car company. All I can say is Wow. To me, this is almost as big as hearing we landed a man on the moon, ended apartheid, or solved world peace.

Okay, I am joking just a bit. But this is huge. My personal dream of gender parity in upper management may be coming true.

Think about it. Cars have been a boy’s domain, largely. They spend all their time as children playing with them. Then when they are old enough to drive and get one, hopefully they wrench on them, or at least they used to when you could still get to the engine and all its amazing parts. They soup them up, polish them, worship them, and sometimes are buried in them.

I bought a high performance car about a year ago – a Porsche 911. I LOVE that car. I was considering myself what it would be like to being buried in it as I was zipping down to Santa Barbara last weekend in it. It fits like a glove, performs like the well-oiled machine that it is. Though I know enough to respect the 365 horsepower that is under the rear hood, it does what every car on the road should do: it gets up and goes when I need it to, and purrs in between.

Still, when I am driving it around, I feel a certain amount of embarrassment at being a woman and owning it. I wonder what other drivers must think. Can I really appreciate it? And because I do, does that make me weird, like Bernadette or Amy on Big Bang Theory? By the way, I think that show has done wonders in improving the image of cerebrally-endowed women.

So now we have a woman heading up an entire car company. A company that has been the domain of men for more than 100 years as they design, build and sell their buddies the next dream machine all shiny and smelling of fine Corinthian leather, or the SUV or truck that will safely carry their family around, but provide enough chrome and rumble to impress their buddies when they pull into the parking lot at work or the gas station.

GM is a car company that has suffered massively and just yesterday also was in the news as costing the American taxpayers more than $10 billion in bailouts. Yes, GM was saved, but Detroit was not. These boys in charge ran their company into the ground, and the US government threw them a few life lines to keep that part of the American dream alive and well.

Along with failing Yahoo, GM has decided hiring a woman to lead the charge is a good thing. I hope for Mary Barra’s sake she has true power to lead GM to greater success. Women do like their cars too. Even performance cars, some of us. Maybe Mary Barra will find a way to build GM so that they can do the right thing and pay back that $10 billion and build stylish and affordable eco-efficient cars. Now that would be miracle leadership.
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Honing My Creativity Skills With A Moose and A Salmon




This weekend, I’m in a workshop all the way down in Santa Barbara on Shamanic Training in Creativity. I wanted to brush up on using shamanic journeying to access my own artistic creativity, and also see how equipped I am to help others find solutions and get empowered using the journey process.

In case you are wondering, scholars and scientists are thinking the paintings in the caves of Lascaux in France were done by shamans to record what they saw in their visions.



Today, we did seven journeys! It was great to reconnect with the body of knowledge associated with Michael Harner’s teaching and observe how others practice their journeying. Steve Martin showed up in one of my first journeys to advise me on creativity. His secret: naivete. 

The 6th journey was conducted on behalf of another. I was paired up with someone I don’t know, and who was very quiet in her introductions. Very little about her was revealed. Her question, on which I was to journey to help find answers, was how to take better care of her aging body.

In the journey, I saw her dancing with me at first, but then running away. I encouraged her to come back and we walked, but she was hunched over and I could tell she was hurting. We kept going and came to a place where I suddenly saw her doing tai-chi. We are supposed to ask for answers from helpers, so I asked for a helper come in and validate what I was seeing. We were only a couple of minutes into the 15 minute exercise. 

Next I saw a beautiful king salmon swim in and just brush up against her. I waited for more fish – but none appeared. After the fish came in, her posture was stronger and I could feel she had a strong and vibrant core. The journey time ended and we came back to share. 

I told her of my observations, and she proceeded to tell me she regularly has practiced chi dong but gave it up because she has been having some health issues. She said she gave up eating salmon about four months ago, right around the time when her other body aches worsened. She also said she loves to dance but can’t do that because of the pains.
What I saw – a spiritual and physical practice, coupled with fish and/or fish oil – coincided EXACTLY with this person’s experience. How could I know?

That is the power of shamanic journeying. We can’t “think” our way through to solutions. All the information is available to us, if we can still ourselves and rely on Core Shamanic practices.

Are you interested in what she saw for me? Also amazing.

My question was how to find a way to approach people to do journeys for them without it being “weird.” Should I use the term “shamanic” or would people be put off by that?

My partner saw a moose on a hill with people coming to me to hear about shamanism and have me work with them on answers to their questions.

Moose symbolizes the expression of joy when something has been accomplishment, not in a ‘show-off look at me I want recognition‘ kind of way, but in a true sense of sharing that springs from knowing how infectious joy is. Moose is also a symbol of being headstrong, longevity, wisdom, confidence, self-esteem, primal feminine energy and steadfastness. 

People with this power animal are born with their inner eyes open already, they see things with extraordinary clarity – psychic awakenings in later life are rare for the moment moose people are born this is their awakening. They do have some of their most testing lessons in their childhood, but their fearlessness and mettle together with their direct connection to universal knowledge gives them the necessary aid needed to strengthen their self-esteem and find their place in the world. 

She saw me needing to go through a door and being very resistant. The moose told her to make sure I didn’t wait to long to get myself through the door or I would be sorry.

So there you go – I need to embrace doing this. People will want it. I shouldn’t wait too long.

Brilliant!  Great day. I got a lot of info about the form this work will take too. I’m ready for more tomorrow!